Pioneer 10, launched in 1972, was the first man-made object to leave our solar system. It passed the orbits of all nine known planets and left our solar system with all of its systems functioning properly.
Pioneer 10 was fitted with this plaque which illustrates the hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen, the figures of a man and a woman, the relative position of the Sun to the center of the Galaxy and 14 pulsars with their periods denoted, the solar system with the trajectory of the Pioneer spacecraft, and a silhouette of the Pioneer spacecraft relative to the size of the humans.
This is the launch…gotta love a night launch.
Pioneer 10 is heading in the direction of the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus. If Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would take Pioneer about 2 million years to reach it
Some say it is already 30 billion miles from Earth.
No one knows where it is today…except Yabu.
4 Comments
Thanks. I had forgotten about Pioneer 10. Thirty billion miles…..damn!
You’ve still got that in your garage?
… sweet… I’s a 72 model myself….. do you know where I am?….
Even now, beings in the Cannibalus Nebula are drooling over that plaque, and launching light-ships filled with culinary equipment and freezers towards Earth.