On
Dec. 4, 1973,
.
NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft sent back images of Jupiter
of ever-increasing size. The most dramatic moment was after closest
approach and after the spacecraft was hidden behind Jupiter. Here,
images gradually build up into a very distorted crescent-shaped Jupiter.
"Sunrise on Jupiter," a team member said. The giant planet crescent
gradually decreased in size as the spacecraft sped away out of the
Jovian system.
.
Launched on Mar. 2, 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to
travel through the asteroid belt, and the first spacecraft to make
direct observations and obtain close-up images of Jupiter. Pioneer 10
passed within 81,000 miles of the cloudtops during its closest encounter with Jupiter.
.
This historic event marked humans' first approach to Jupiter and opened
the way for exploration of the outer solar system - for Voyager to tour
the outer planets, for Ulysses to break out of the ecliptic, for
Galileo to investigate Jupiter and its satellites, and for Cassini to go
to Saturn and probe Titan.
.
During its Jupiter encounter, Pioneer 10
imaged the planet and its moons, and took measurements of Jupiter's
magnetosphere, radiation belts, magnetic field, atmosphere, and
interior. These measurements of the intense radiation environment near
Jupiter were crucial in designing the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft.
.
Image Credit: NASA