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N0KFQ > TODAY 14.06.12 00:38l 33 Lines 1390 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 23709_KB0WSA
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Jun 13
Path: IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<JH4XSY<JE7YGF<N9PMO<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 120613/2232Z 23709@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.51
Jun 13, 1983:
Pioneer 10 departs solar system
After more than a decade in space, Pioneer 10, the world's first
outer-planetary probe, leaves the solar system. The next day, it
radioed back its first scientific data on interstellar space.
On March 2, 1972, the NASA spacecraft was launched from Cape
Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Jupiter, the solar system's
largest planet. In December 1973, after successfully negotiating
the asteroid belt and a distance of 620 million miles, Pioneer 10
reached Jupiter and sent back to Earth the first close-up images
of the spectacular gas giant. On June 13, 1983, the NASA
spacecraft left the solar system. NASA officially ended the
Pioneer 10 project on March 31, 1997, with the spacecraft having
traveled a distance of some six billion miles.
Headed in the direction of the Taurus constellation, Pioneer 10
will pass within three light years of another star--Ross 246--in
the year 34,600 A.D. Bolted to the probe's exterior wall is a
gold-anodized plaque, 6 by 9 inches in area, that displays a
drawing of a human man and woman, a star map marked with the
location of the sun, and another map showing the flight path of
Pioneer 10. The plaque, intended for intelligent life forms
elsewhere in the galaxy, was designed by astronomer Carl Sagan.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
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