On March 2, 1972, the Pioneer 10 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center. It was the first spacecraft to visit one of the outer planets of the solar system and the first human-made object to leave our solar system.
Today it is over seven billion miles from Earth and will continue to travel through the depths of space forever… unless, of course, it accidentally crashes into some object, natural or artificial. NASA engineers, thinking that after many millions, perhaps billions, of years, some intelligent beings might find Pioneer, placed a message inside the spacecraft indicating its origin.
This particular message was written and stored in the simplest form. No magnetic storage media, no optical discs, no digital data of any kind. The storage medium – if it can be called that – is a rectangular plate of anodized gold.
The plaque was designed by astronomers Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, who had been involved in research on extraterrestrial intelligence. The engraving was undertaken by Linda Salzman Sagan. The message is in the form of images and shows human creatures and the spacecraft itself, so that the aliens would understand that the beings who built and sent the spacecraft have this particular appearance. Also engraved on the plaque are the orbit of Pioneer 10 in relation to the planets of the solar system, the position of the Sun in relation to 14 known pulsars and the center of the galaxy, as well as the basic structure of neutral hydrogen.
So, in reality, the joke is also an invitation: “Here we are, come visit us”…
