Launched on March 2, 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the Asteroid Belt (on July 15, 1972), and the first spacecraft to made direct observations and obtain close-up images of Jupiter. The craft made its closest encounter to Jupiter on December 3, 1973, passing within 81,000 miles of the cloudtops. 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.

Pioneer 10 also made valuable scientific investigations in the outer regions of our Solar System, studying energetic particles from the Solar Wind and cosmic rays entering our portion of the Milky War. Its science mission ended on March 31, 1997, and the last signal from Pioneer 10 was received on January 23, 2003.

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