Fact Sheet
Still Ticking
Almost 30 years after leaving Earth, Pioneer 10 keeps on ticking. Pioneer was the first craft to study Jupiter at close range, in December 1973 (depicted in this artist's conception). Ground controllers contacted Pioneer 10 on April 28 after more than nine months of silence. The probe is almost 7.3 billion miles from Earth, and signals from its eight-watt radio transmitter must travel almost 11 hours to reach tracking antennas. {NASA]
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