Pioneer 10 continues to talk, 30 years later!

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From SpaceDaily: NASA sent a calibration "wake-up" signal to the spacecraft yesterday, it responded today. Some of its instruments are even still working.

Amazing. I'm old enough to remember when it was launched! :)

-- Stephen (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), March 05, 2002

Answers

Is this the spacecraft that has the pictures of a nekkid man and woman?

-- (lars@indy.net), March 05, 2002.

Not only are Pioneers 10 and 11 both still active but their motions indicate an anomalous acceleration towards the sun (according to John Anderson and coworkers at JPL). Apparently this has been going on for 20 years or so. They mention the ideas of Mordehai Milgrom that modify Newtonian dynamics as a possible explanation on the wilder side.

-- dandelion (golden@pleurisy.plant), March 09, 2002.

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