The book I read to research this post was The Pioneer Detectives by Konstantin Kakaes which is an excellent book that I bought from kindle. This book is quite short around 80 pages and is part of kindle singles which are short e-books offered at a low price and are often on niche subjects. This one is about the Pioneer space probes 10 & 11 which are currently the only man made objects to leave the solar system on their explorations. They were initially sent with the intention of exploring Jupiter and Saturn and have gone on the other planets. They have performed way beyond expectations. Many thought Jupiters radiation and gravity would destroy them. They were also concerned about the Asteroid Belt beyond Mars and it was not known how dense it was with particles and how fast they travelled. They were both equipped with a kind of still camera that took pictures at intervals.The spacecraft have to rotate to get enough speed and give an adequate amount of control over their movements. Since reaching a point almost twice as far as Pluto they have stopped sending back pictures. It’s thought they will reach Betelgeuse in 2 million years. That is a solar system with a red giant star. This is an interesting book that is well researched and I do recommend it.
scratbagroberts 