Probes Leaving The Solar System
| Spacecraft | Organization | Notes | Image | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pioneer 10 | NASA | Left Jupiter in December 1973. Mission ended March 1997. Last contact January 23, 2003. Craft now presumed dead; no further contact attempts planned. | ||
| Pioneer 11 | NASA | Left Saturn in September 1979. Last contact September 1995. The craft's antenna cannot be manoeuvred to point to Earth, and it is not known if it is still transmitting. No further contact attempts are planned. | ||
| Voyager 1 | NASA | Left Saturn in November 1980. Still in regular contact and transmitting scientific data (as of April 2011). Contact hoped to be maintained until at least 2020. | ||
| Voyager 2 | NASA | Left Neptune in August 1989. Still in regular contact and transmitting scientific data (as of April 2011). Contact hoped to be maintained until at least 2020. | ||
| New Horizons | NASA | Currently en route to outer Solar System. Expected to reach Pluto in July 2015. |
Read more about this topic: List Of Solar System Probes
Famous quotes containing the words solar system, leaving, solar and/or system:
“Our civilization has decided ... that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.... When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“A name with meaning could bring up a child,
Taking the child out of the parents’ hands.
Better a meaningless name, I should say,
As leaving more to nature and happy chance.
Name children some names and see what you do.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Senta: These boats, sir, what are they for?
Hamar: They are solar boats for Pharaoh to use after his death. They’re the means by which Pharaoh will journey across the skies with the sun, with the god Horus. Each day they will sail from east to west, and each night Pharaoh will return to the east by the river which runs underneath the earth.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“Loving feels lonely in a violent world,
irrelevant to people burning like last year’s weed
with bellies distended, with fish throats agape
and flesh melting down to glue.
We can no longer shut out the screaming
That leaks through the ventilation system ...”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)