I would like to post something that is not a book review in honor of this day in history. Today I would like to celebrate the day that forty years ago, NASA launched Pioneer 10 into space. This probe, which sent earth vital information and photos, was the first spacecraft to explore the outer planets. It left the solar system in 1983 radioing back the first data on interstellar space and continued send information back to NASA until the end of its mission in 1997. At the time, it had traveled over six billion miles.
But the future of Pioneer 10 is truly exciting. Headed toward the Taurus constellation, it is scheduled to pass close to the star Ross 246 in the year 346000 AD. Famous astronomer Carl Sagan designed a small plaque bolted onto the plaque that includes a drawing of a man and woman, a star map of our sun as well as the direction traveled by the probe. This message, intended for extra-terrestrials, will alert them to the existence of Earth.
We can for hope four things in the future of this inevitable encounter.
1) Humans still look similar to the images on the plaque after many thousands of years of evolution
2) The aliens do not want to conquer earth and eat our flesh, but like the Vulcans, come in peace
3) We have not already been exterminated in this future year, either by our own doing or another hostile alien nation from the Andromeda galaxy.
4) The rapture will not have occurred.
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