{"id":36369,"date":"2025-09-01T11:29:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T11:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/36369\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T11:29:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T11:29:06","slug":"which-forgotten-probes-explored-the-outer-solar-system-before-voyager-the-untold-pioneer-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/36369\/","title":{"rendered":"Which forgotten probes explored the outer solar system before Voyager? The untold Pioneer story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Its sister craft, Pioneer 11, followed in April 1973. Initially designed as a backup, it soon established its own legacy. After a flyby of Jupiter in 1974, it used the planet\u2019s gravity to slingshot toward Saturn. In September 1979, Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to encounter the ringed planet directly, discovering Saturn\u2019s faint F ring, a previously unknown moon, and mapping the planet\u2019s magnetic field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Its sister craft, Pioneer 11, followed in April 1973. Initially designed as a backup, it soon established its&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[28251,28257,28273,28259,28272,18,28253,28254,28255,28250,19,28271,28258,17,28268,28275,28262,28252,27601,28263,27602,28264,28260,28256,28249,28265,28269,133,28267,28270,25550,28266,28261,28274],"class_list":{"0":"post-36369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-before-voyager","9":"tag-carl-sagan-message","10":"tag-cosmic-explorers","11":"tag-deep-space-missions","12":"tag-early-space-probes","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-first-asteroid-belt-crossing","15":"tag-first-close-up-of-jupiter","16":"tag-first-saturn-flyby","17":"tag-forgotten-space-missions","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-interstellar-drift","20":"tag-interstellar-journey","21":"tag-ireland","22":"tag-jupiter-magnetosphere-discovery","23":"tag-nasa-missions","24":"tag-nasa-pioneer-program","25":"tag-outer-solar-system-exploration","26":"tag-pioneer-10","27":"tag-pioneer-10-last-signal-2003","28":"tag-pioneer-11","29":"tag-pioneer-11-last-contact-1995","30":"tag-pioneer-anomaly","31":"tag-pioneer-plaque","32":"tag-pioneer-probes","33":"tag-pioneer-spacecraft-achievements","34":"tag-saturn-f-ring-discovery","35":"tag-science","36":"tag-solar-system-exploration-history","37":"tag-space-exploration-milestones","38":"tag-space-history","39":"tag-trailblazers-of-voyager","40":"tag-unexplained-spacecraft-slowdown","41":"tag-unsung-space-heroes"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}