Information AboutPioneer 10 |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT PIONEER 10 | |
| jupiter spacecraft | |
| pioneer program | |
| 1972 in space exploration | |
| spacecraft escaping the solar system | |
| inactive extraterrestrial probes | |
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''Pioneer 10'' was the first spacecraft to travel through the Asteroid Belt , and was the first spacecraft to make direct observations of Jupiter . It was launched on March 2 , 1972 . By some definitions, ''Pioneer 10'' has become the first artificial object to Leave The Solar System . However, ''Pioneer 10'' still has not passed the Heliopause or Oort Cloud . __TOC__ MISSION On December 3 , 1973 , ''Pioneer 10'' sent back the first close-up images of Jupiter. On June 13 th 1983 it passed the orbit of Neptune , then the outermost planet because of Pluto 's highly eccentric orbit. Famed for a time as the most remote object ever made by man, at last contact ''Pioneer 10'' was over 7.60 billion miles away from Earth . (Until February 17 , 1998 , the heliocentric radial distance of ''Pioneer 10'' had been greater than that of any other man-made object. But later on that date, Voyager 1 's Heliocentric Radial Distance , in the approximate apex direction, equaled that of ''Pioneer 10'' at 69.419 AU . Afterward, Voyager 1 's distance exceeds that of Pioneer 10 at the approximate rate of 1.016 AU per year). As of December 30 , 2005 ''Pioneer 10'' was 89.7 AU away from the Sun . on board the Pioneer spacecraft]] Pioneer 10 was also outfitted with A Plaque to serve as a message for any Extraterrestrial Life , in the event that it may be discovered. Built by until the end of its mission on March 31 , 1997 . The ''Pioneer 10'''s weak signal continued to be tracked by the Deep Space Network as part of a new advanced concept study of Chaos Theory . Before 1997 the probe was used in the training of flight controllers on how to acquire radio signals from space. The last, very weak, signal from ''Pioneer 10'' was received January 23 , 2003 . A contact attempt February 7 , 2003 was not successful. The last successful reception of telemetry was on April 27 , 2002 ; subsequent signals were barely strong enough to detect. Loss of contact was probably due to a combination of increasing distance and the spacecraft's steadily weakening power source, rather than failure of the craft. One final attempt was made in March 2006, the last time the antenna would be correctly aligned with Earth. So far, no response has been received from Pioneer 10 but researchers are still going over data. {Link without Title} ''Pioneer 10'' is heading in the direction of the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus . It will take ''Pioneer'' over 2 million years to reach it. PIONEER ANOMALY ''Main article: Pioneer Anomaly '' Analysis of the radio tracking data from the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft at distances between 20–70 AU from the Sun has consistently indicated the presence of an anomalous, small Doppler frequency drift. The drift can be interpreted as being due to a constant acceleration of (8.74 ± 1.33) × 10−10 m/s2 directed towards the Sun. Although it is suspected that there is a systematic origin to the effect, none has been found. As a result, the nature of this Anomaly has become of growing interest. FICTIONAL REFERENCES ''Pioneer 10'' was used for target practice and easily destroyed by a ''. ''Pioneer 10'' was also seen in episode 1.12 of Futurama in a quick pull from Earth to the planet Omicron Persei 8. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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