Interstellar Pioneer

On June 13, 1983, Pioneer 10 became the first human-made object to travel past Pluto. The first spacecraft to achieve escape velocity from our sun’s system, it was poised to enter interstellar space. For 10 years up to this date, the hardy pioneer had negotiated radiation belts, magnetic fields, the asteroid belts, and contributed to Earth flight controllers’ ability to detect and acquire radio signals in space.

After travelling past Pluto, Pioneer 10 continued sending data for another 20 years before losing communication with Earth in January 2003. At that time, the space probe was 12 billion km (80 AU) from Earth.

Wherever it is, Pioneer 10 carries a plaque with messages from Earth as it continues its drift to other stars ~ Earth’s first intergalactic message in a bottle!

B Bondar / Real World Content Advantage