Pioneer 10 and female along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft. The plaque is attached to the antenna support struts to provide some shielding from interstellar dust. In the film "", a Klingon ship destroys "Pioneer 10" as target practice. In the internet multimedia fiction project "17776", a sentient "Pioneer 10" is one of the main characters. Pioneer 10 Pioneer 10 (originally designated Pioneer F) is an American space probe, launched in 1972 and weighing , that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. Thereafter, "Pioneer 10" became the first of five
Mercury (planet) several meters. Not until the first space probe flew past Mercury did many of its most fundamental morphological properties become known. Moreover, recent technological advances have led to improved ground-based observations. In 2000, high-resolution lucky imaging observations were conducted by the Mount Wilson Observatory 1.5 meter Hale telescope. They provided the first views that resolved surface features on the parts of Mercury that were not imaged in the mission. Most of the planet has been mapped by the Arecibo radar telescope, with resolution, including polar deposits in shadowed craters of what may be water ice. Reaching Mercury from Earth poses