Pioneer 10 Topics

• voyager 1 spacecraft
• termination shock
• relative velocity
• nearer to the sun
• voyager 2
• heliopause
• nasa
• million years
• solar system
• trajectory
• bil
• hasn
• utc
• communication

Related Images

Source

Source

del.icio.us Tags

• pioneer
• astronomy
• space
• encyclopedia
• free
• 10
• wikipedia

Pioneer 10, Pioneer 10

It is surely the first human-built object to have been set upon a trajectory leading out of the solar system. However, it still has not passed the heliopause or Oort cloud According to NASA, the Voyager 1 spacecraft reached the termination shock on 2005-05-24, Voyager 2 on 2007-08-30. Both had travelled at that time about 16 000 bil. km. The termination shock lies nearer to the Sun than the Heliopause. Pioneer 10 has reached about 15 363 bil. km on 2008-12-01 Pioneer 10 on 2008-12-01 00:00 UTC with the Solar Sysem Simulator / So, it is clear that it hasn't reached the heliopause since 1st December 2008, and that nobody will ever know when it reaches it, as Pioneer 10 has terminated communication in 2003.

If Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would take Pioneer 10 about 2 million years to reach it.

Source: Wikipedia > Pioneer 10