First spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt and fly past Jupiter
Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to safely cross the asteroid belt and make direct observations of Jupiter. Its famous gold-anodized aluminium plaque — designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake — depicts a man and woman, a hydrogen atom, and the Sun's position relative to 14 pulsars, as a message to any civilization that might find it. The final weak signal was received on January 23, 2003, when Pioneer 10 was 80 AU from the Sun.