The power of nuclear power

["JOHN JACOBUS" <JENDAY1@email.msn.com>]

I saw this in passing.


----- Original Message -----
From: ArcaMax <ezines@arcamax.com>
To: <jenday1@email.msn.com>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 12:17 AM
Subject: ArcaMax Science News for March 06, 2000
. . .
>    FADING FAST, BUT STILL ON THE AIR.
>    Pioneer 10 was launched on March 2, 1972, on a voyage to Jupiter slated
> to last two years. Now, 28 years later, the little spacecraft is still
> operating, though it is now as far from the Sun as the planet Pluto, and
is
> speeding out of the solar system at a speed of 28,000 miles per hour. The
> plutonium in its nuclear reactor is still producing heat, but the
> thermocouples that convert it into electricity are wearing out, says NASA
> mission control. Its transmitter has just 8 watts of power, and the weak
> signal it sends home takes more than 10 hours -- at the speed of light --
> to reach Earth. Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter. It
> then became the first to pass through the asteroid belt, and it will soon
> be the first human-made artifact to venture beyond Pluto's orbit into deep
> space.
>
> --
> Copyright 2000 by United Press International.
> All rights reserved.
. . .

-- John

John Jacobus, MS
Medical Health Physicist
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD  20715-2024
jjacobus@exchange.nih.gov (w)
jenday1@email.msn.com (H)


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