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From: Stig_Agermose@online.pol.dk (Stig Agermose)
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 06:20:46 +0200
Fwd Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 09:18:52 -0400
Subject: Pioneer 10 Calls Home

URL:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_145000/145885.stm

Stig

*******

BBC News Online: Sci/Tech

Wednesday, August 5, 1998 Published at 13:02 GMT 14:02 UK

Pioneer 10 calls home
          
One of the most distant space probes ever launched into space has been
contacted again and is sending back valuable data about unexplored
space. Our science editor Dr David Whitehouse reports

Pioneer 10 was in every sense a pioneering space mission. Launched on
March 2nd 1972 it opened the way to the exploration of deep space.

It was the first craft to travel through the asteroid belt, a region of
rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter.

It was the first craft to explore Jupiter and on June 13th, 1983, was
the first space probe to travel further than the Sun's most distant
planet.

Since then it has been sending back information as it heads for
interstellar space with dwindling onboard power.

Its goal is the so-called heliopause, a region in space where the Sun's
influence ends and true interstellar space begins. No spacecraft has
ever reached it.

Pioneer 10's mission formally ended in 1997 but as part of a training
program controllers of the Lunar Prospector spacecraft in orbit around
the moon detected it once again.

It's still working 10.6 billion km (6.6 billion miles) away. It is so
distant that light takes 19h 40m to reach it.

It is heading towards the red star Aldeberan, the main star in the
constellation of Taurus. It should get there in 2 million years time.

In the unlikely event that any form of life should find it it contains
a plaque telling them about the creatures that built it.

BBC =A9