Question 1

True or false: Pioneer 11 carries a gold-plated plaque depicting a man and a woman.

Accepted Answer

True. Like Pioneer 10, it has a plaque designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, intended for any intelligent life that finds it.

Question 2

True or false: Pioneer 11 was the first human-made object to leave the solar system.

Accepted Answer

False. That honor belongs to Pioneer 10, which exited the heliosphere first. Pioneer 11 was the second, after Voyager 1.

Question 3

True or false: Pioneer 11 passed through the asteroid belt without any collisions.

Accepted Answer

True. It successfully traversed the asteroid belt in 1973, confirming that spacecraft could safely navigate this region.

Question 4

True or false: Pioneer 11 was the first spacecraft to visit Saturn up close.

Accepted Answer

True. It flew past Saturn in 1979, returning the first-ever close-up images of the planet and its rings.

Question 5

True or false: Pioneer 11's power source was a nuclear reactor.

Accepted Answer

False. It used four radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), not a reactor, converting heat from plutonium decay into electricity.

Question 6

True or false: NASA lost contact with Pioneer 11 in 1995 due to power limitations.

Accepted Answer

True. Its signal became too weak to detect as its RTG power decayed, and the final telemetry was received on September 30, 1995.

Question 7

True or false: Pioneer 11’s trajectory was used to test Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Accepted Answer

False. The 'Pioneer anomaly'—a slight unexpected acceleration—was actually a puzzle, but later attributed to thermal radiation effects, not relativity.

Question 8

True or false: Pioneer 11 discovered a new moon of Jupiter.

Accepted Answer

False. It did not discover any new Jovian moons; its primary Jupiter science focused on radiation belts and the Great Red Spot.

Pioneer 11 Trivia Questions