Space Photos of the Week: Oh Pioneers! | WIRED | xxxSpace Photos of the Week: Oh Pioneers! | WIRED – xxx
菜单






Space Photos of the Week: Oh Pioneers! | WIRED

八月 31, 2019 - MorningStar

Skip to main content

Space Photos of the Week: Oh Pioneers! | WIRED
Space Photos of the Week: Oh Pioneers!

Search

Space Photos of the Week: Oh Pioneers!

Two twin probes from the 1970s sent back some of our first images from Saturn and Jupiter.

Space Photos of the Week: Oh Pioneers! | WIRED
Pioneer 10 launched in 1972, and in 1973 became the first spacecraft to visit the Jovian environment, although it kept a somewhat safe distance of 25 million kilometers. (The Juno craft, which flies by the planet every 52 days once got as close as 2,600 miles.) On December 3, 1974, Pioneer 10 sent back a series of photos in which Jupiter appears as crescents and slivers, progressing into an almost complete gas giant.Photograph: NASA

In 1972, NASA launched two twin probes, called Pioneer 10 and 11. These predecessors to the Voyager mission were the first to visit Jupiter and Saturn and to achieve the escape velocity required to leave the solar system (which they will both do one day, many thousands of years from now). The Pioneer probes were proof-of-concept craft, sent to see how dangerous the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter was, and to observe the toxic radiation environment around Jupiter. Luckily, both spacecraft survived. And while they might be overshadowed by the Voyager probes, they were pretty significant in their achievements.

Not only were they the first spacecraft to visit the asteroid belt, Jupiter, and Saturn; they even carried with them a plaque that carried a message on behalf of all humankind. The Voyager probe, of course, famously bore a plaque that depicted our location in the galaxy, as well as a golden record full of music and sounds from Earth. The Pioneer plaque that came before it depicted a man and a woman, as well as a map of our location within the galaxy. We’re going to be retro pioneers this week and explore some of the things the Pioneer probes saw while dashing around the outer solar system.

In 1974, Pioneer 11 flew over the north pole of Jupiter and sent back a photo of the planet that features these swirling bending storms. The large belts of winds are very clear here despite the retro-style image quality.Photograph: NASA
After visiting Jupiter, Pioneer 11 continued onward to Saturn, becoming the first spacecraft to ever visit this ringed icon. While kind of fuzzy, this photo still highlights some of the gaps in Saturn’s rings and the texture in the atmosphere. You can see the planet’s largest moon, Titan, shining in the lower right as a little orange dot,Photograph: NASA
Advertisement

Pioneer 11 captured this image on September 1, 1979, and it was humankind’s first close-up image of Saturn. The moody shadows give this image a 1940s noir sort of feel.Photograph: NASA
Designed by scientists Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, the Pioneer Plaque is a precursor to the Voyager Golden Record—it was designed to help communicate information about our species to an intelligent life-form. A male and female figure are seen here along with a pulsar map that gives the location of the Earth by using an alignment of stars in the galaxy.Photograph: NASA Ames

Take a pioneering tour through other planets in WIRED's collection of space photos here.

More Great WIRED Stories








Notice: Undefined variable: canUpdate in /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wp-autopost-pro/wp-autopost-function.php on line 51