Pioneer 10 is an unmanned space probe that studied Jupiter and its moons, and was the first to cross the asteroid belt and reach solar system escape velocity. It is currently heading towards Aldebaran, located 65 light-years away. Pioneer 10 also observed the Pioneer anomaly, a puzzling deceleration towards the solar system.
Pioneer 10 is an unmanned space probe, the first to cross the asteroid belt and study Jupiter and its moons. Launched on March 2, 1972, Pioneer 10 is also the first probe to reach solar system escape velocity. It is currently heading in the direction of the orange giant star Aldebaran, which is the “eye” of the bull that makes up the constellation Taurus, located about 65 light-years away. If our system and the Aldebaran system had zero velocity relative to each other, Pioneer 10 would reach it in about two million years.
Pioneer 10 has taken the first high-resolution close-up images of Jupiter. Passing through the asteroid belt was not difficult: although it is sometimes depicted as dense with asteroids, in reality they are very scattered. True to its name, Pioneer 10, and her sister ship, Pioneer 12, were the first true pioneers in the exploration of the outer solar system.
Some of the scientific assignments given to Pioneer 10 were the study of interplanetary and planetary magnetic fields; solar wind parameters; Cosmic Rays; transition region of the heliosphere; abundance of neutral hydrogen; distribution, size, mass, flow and velocity of dust particles; jovian auroras; jovian radio waves; and observing Jupiter’s atmosphere, as well as its satellites.
The Pioneer 10 vehicle weighed 276 kg, small for an interplanetary probe, and was built as part of NASA Ames Research Center’s Pioneer program. Like some of the other ships designed to exit the solar system, it included an information plaque sent as a message to any extraterrestrial who might pick it up in the future.
More recently, Pioneer 10 observed that it is accelerating slightly towards the solar system as it continues to drift. This has been called the Pioneer anomaly. This deceleration won’t stop Pioneer 10 from leaving the solar system, but its presence is very puzzling to physicists, who are used to predicting the physical behavior of such objects very accurately. While the reason for this deceleration may be as trivial as gas leakage, a whole new physics is also being considered.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
