Wahana antariksa

Pioneer 10

Jarak dari Bumi saat ini

…

dihitung langsung dari data orbit (NASA/JPL)

Distance from the Sun (Oct 2026)

≈ 142 AU (≈ 21 billion km)

Launched

March 2, 1972

Antenna

2.7 m (antenna)

Speed

≈ 11.9 km/s relative to the Sun

Pioneer 10 was the first probe to cross the asteroid belt and the first to visit Jupiter (December 3, 1973, at about 130,000 km). It returned the first close-ups of the planet and measured its intense radiation. In 1983 it crossed the orbit of Neptune. The last faint signal arrived on January 23, 2003; there has been no contact since – it keeps flying silently, roughly toward the star Aldebaran in Taurus, which it would reach in about two million years. Aboard is the Pioneer plaque, a message for possible extraterrestrials by Carl Sagan, Frank Drake and Linda Salzman Sagan: a gold-anodized aluminium plate (15 × 23 cm) showing a man and a woman, the hydrogen atom as a ruler, a map of 14 pulsars and the Solar System with the probe's path – no sound, only engraved lines. The position shown here is calculated (JPL Horizons), not measured.

Data orbit: NASA/JPL Horizons. Foto: Wikimedia Commons.