Pioneer Plate - The Pioneer Plate - The Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 probes have...

Pioneer Plate - The Pioneer Plate - The Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 probes have embarked on a plate, called the Pioneer Plate, containing a message intended for potential aliens. On this engraved metal plate are depicted a naked man and woman, the location of our Sun as well as 14 pulsars, the trajectory of the probe in the solar system... Pioneer 10 was launched on 3 March 1972 with as its first destination, the Jupiter Planet, which it flew over on 3 December 1973; it was the first space probe to approach this planet; it was also the first space probe to leave the solar system. The Pioneer F spacecraft, destined to be the first man made object to escape from the solar system into interstellar space, carries this pictorial plaque. It is designed to show scientifically educated inhabitants of some other star system, who might intercept it millions of years from now, when Pioneer was launched, from where, and by what kind of beings. The design is etched into a 6 inch by 9 inch gold - anodized aluminum plate, attached to the spacecraft's attenna support struts in a position to help shield it from erosion by interstellar dust. The radiating lines at left represents the positions of 14 pulsars, a cosmic source of radio energy, arranged to indicate our sun as the home star of our civilization. The “” 1 - “” symbols at the ends of the lines are binary numbers that represent the frequencies of these pulsars at the time of launch of Pioneer F relative of that to the hydrogen atom shown at the upper left with a “” 1”” unity symbol. The hydrogen atom is thus used as a “” universal clock,”” and the regular decrease in the frequencies of the pulsars will enable another civilization to determine the time that has elapsed since Pioneer F was launched. The hydrogen is also used as a “” universal yardstick”” for sizing the human figures and outline of the spacecraft shown on the right. The hydrogen wavelength, about 8 inches, multiplied by