Pioneer 10 Crosses Neptune: Humanity Leaves the Solar System
Pioneer 10 crossed Neptune's orbit on June 13, 1983, becoming the first human-made object to travel beyond the outermost planet (Pluto's orbit was inside Neptune's at the time). The spacecraft had launched from Cape Canaveral on March 2, 1972, and was the first to traverse the asteroid belt, the first to obtain close-up images of Jupiter, and the first to use a planet's gravity to boost its speed. Pioneer 10 carries a gold-anodized aluminum plaque depicting a man, a woman, and the spacecraft's origin in the solar system, designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake. NASA received Pioneer 10's last detectable signal on January 23, 2003, when it was 7.6 billion miles from Earth. The spacecraft is heading toward the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus; it will arrive in approximately two million years.
June 13, 1983
43 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on June 13
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