A Message from Earth
Abstract
Pioneer 10 is the first spacecraft that will leave the solar system. Scheduled for a launch no earlier than 27 February 1972, its 630- to 790-day-long flight will take it within two planetary radii of Jupiter, where, in a momentum exchange with the largest planet in the solar system, the spacecraft will be accelerated out of the solar system with a residual velocity at infinity of 11.5 km/sec. The spacecraft is designed to examine interplanetary space between the earth and Jupiter, perform preliminary reconnaissance in the asteroid belt, and make the first close-up observations of Jupiter and its particles and fields environment. It seemed to us appropriate that this spacecraft, the first man-made object to leave the solar system, should carry some indication of the locale, epoch, and nature of its builders.
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- February 1972
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.175.4024.881
- Bibcode:
- 1972Sci...175..881S