X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Pioneer program


AstroTown

The book has the human figures from the Pioneer spacecraft’s plaque on the cover because the city remained far away from Earth, like the Pioneers from NASA.

Phong reflection model

For example, it has been used to model the reflection of thermal radiation from the Pioneer probes in an attempt to explain the Pioneer anomaly.

Pioneer 5

Pioneer 5 (also known as Pioneer P-2, and Thor Able 4) was a spin-stabilized space probe in the NASA Pioneer program used to investigate interplanetary space between the orbits of Earth and Venus.


Coronal radiative losses

Before the first rocket missions, the corona could be observed only in white light during the eclipses, while in the last fifty years the solar corona has been photographed in the EUV and X-rays by many satellites (Pioneer 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Helios, Skylab, SMM, NIXT, Yohkoh, SOHO, TRACE, Hinode).


see also