Intergalactic Love Story?
Be thankful I couldn't find a picture of Tipper's nude (and pregnant) self portrait!
Posted on 02/25/2003 4:51:06 PM PST by HAL9000
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to venture out of the solar system, has fallen silent after traveling billions of miles from Earth on a mission that has lasted nearly 31 years, NASA said Tuesday.What was apparently the spacecraft's last signal was received Jan. 22 by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Deep Space Network. At the time, Pioneer 10 was 7.6 billion miles from Earth; the signal, traveling at the speed of light, took 11 hours and 20 minutes to arrive.
The signal and the two previous signals were very faint. The Deep Space Network heard nothing from Pioneer 10 during a final attempt at contact on Feb. 7. No more attempts are planned.
Pioneer 10 was launched March 2, 1972, on a 21-month mission. It became the first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt and the first to obtain close-up images of Jupiter. In 1983, it became the first manmade object to leave the solar system when it passed the orbit of distant Pluto.
Although Pioneer 10's mission officially ended in 1997, scientists continued to track the TRW Inc.-built spacecraft as part of a study of communication technology for NASA's future Interstellar Probe mission. Pioneer 10 hasn't relayed telemetry data since April 27.
"It was a workhorse that far exceeded its warranty, and I guess you could say we got our money's worth," said Larry Lasher, Pioneer 10 project manager at NASA's Ames Research Center.
Pioneer 10 carries a gold plaque engraved with a message of goodwill and a map showing the Earth's location in the solar system. The spacecraft continues to coast toward the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus. It will take 2 million years to reach it.
On the Net:
Pioneer 10: spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNhome.html
Intergalactic Love Story?
Be thankful I couldn't find a picture of Tipper's nude (and pregnant) self portrait!
If Bill Clinton would go away for good, I'd spring for the 20 bucks.
This is what the aliens will see, regardless of nationality on the graphic:
Alien: I thought it was a menu. SPAM from some delivery service.
HA!
I just scored a Rainbow on Ebay for 67 bucks.
Your welcome :-) BTW, a qualifier on this. All the frequencies travel at the same speed in a vacuum. In the atmosphere (or any other medium), the different wavelengths (frequencies) have a slightly different velocity. This is why a prism works to separate the different colors (frequencies) of light. The index of refraction is slightly different due to the velocity difference.
Naw, just my field. :-) Thanks for the compliment!
My Dad worked for the team that made the power supply for Pioneer (and Viking, etc.). The power supply is called an RTG, radioisotopic thermoelectric generator, but the concept is, in theory, trivial. You build a thermopyle (a bunch of thermocouples in series (or is it in parallel), and you put one pole of it towards the cold of space, and the other pole next to a small pile of radioactively hot material (which remains thermally hot, as well, from low-level nuclear fission). The temperature difference across the thermopyle produces a weak but steady current which powers all the satellite's functions. Of course, that job went with the passing of the Apollo program.
He had also worked on the team that did the original (post Sputnik) ablative heat shields for the KRONOS spy satellites. As I understand it, the idea was that the satellite was launched and made to orbitally fly over the target. It would take its photos and then reenter the atmosphere with the aid of the ablative heat shield and then pop a parachute at high altitude. An air force plane with what amounted to a hook would track the parachute, and grab the thing in mid flight (the size of the rentry vehicle was quite small) and fly it back to the AF base for film processing and sending off to the spooks. About 10 years ago, all this '60's stuff was declassified and the remaining members of the original team got recognized by DoD.
History Lesson, by Arthur C. Clarke. Originally published as a short story in 1949 in Startling Stories. Republished in 1973 in The Best of Arthur C. Clarke, 1937-1955.
Ebay it ;-)
Excellent observation!!!
And they don't have coneheads, either.
The above illustration provides the 1995 location of spacecraft that have passed the orbits of Pluto/Neptune. It appears from the illustration that Pioneer 10 was travelling along the "tail" and may never definatively reach the heliopause. Do we know which direction the tail points, or is the illustrtation taking a guess at that direction?
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