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NASA Gives Up On Pioneer 10

Soft writes "Another Energizer Bunny has finally given out: Pioneer 10's generators have decayed to the point that DSN can no longer detect the probe's signals. It was the first spacecraft to penetrate the asteroid belt (1972) and fly by Jupiter (1973). So long and thanks for all the pic's..."

4 of 607 comments (clear)

  1. What they SHOULD have done by Hao+Wu · · Score: 0, Redundant

    ... is to launch a series of probes that could relay signals back to one another. The probes would be like a long network of space chain. They could potentially travel to many times the distance achieved by Pioneer. Then they could reach another solar system, fall in to orbit around that sun, further to head back toward our own sun with information collected on data tapes and hard drive.

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    I suggest you read Slashdot
  2. Map to earth and J.S Bach by SystematicPsycho · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Didn't it have a map to earth so that if any intelligent life forms find it - it can find where it came from? (Earth). Also, didn't it iteratively play one of J.S Bach's concerto non-stop to show these other intelligent life forms what music from earth was like?

    When the Earth eventually gets swallowed up by the Sun so far this satellite is all we have left to prove our existence :)

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    Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
  3. Never again, anything like it. by ayeco · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Most of us will never again see anything like this. Neither the last communication of a space probe like this nor another space probe at the edge of our solarsystem. Will we make more? Probably. Will we see the edge of the solarsystem again? 30 years is a long time, most of us will be dead in 30 years.

  4. Re:82,000 mph !!!!! by Beebos · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Oh, I see..... ...only 20,000 mph. I guess it's not that impressive. ;-)