<Tr> <Td> 1974 - 01 - 01 </Td> <Td> Phase stop </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1974 - 01 - 01 </Td> <Td> Begin Pioneer Interstellar Mission </Td> </Tr> <Table> <Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> More </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1975 - 02 - 10 </Td> <Td> The US Post Office issued a commemorative stamp featuring the Pioneer 10 space probe (See image). </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1983 - 04 - 25 </Td> <Td> Crossed orbit of Pluto, still defined as a planet at the time (Pluto's irregular orbit meant it was closer to the Sun than Neptune). </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1983 - 06 - 13 </Td> <Td> Crossed orbit of Neptune, the furthest planet away from the Sun at the time, to become the first human - made object to depart the Solar System . By dialing 1 - 900 - 410 - 4111, one could access a recording provided by TRW that was made by slowing down and converting Pioneer 10's data feed to analog sounds . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1997 - 03 - 31 </Td> <Td> End of mission . Contact is maintained with spacecraft to record telemetry . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1998 - 02 - 17 </Td> <Td> Voyager 1 overtakes Pioneer 10 as the most distant human - made object from the Sun, at 69.419 AU . Voyager 1 is moving away from the Sun over 1 AU per year faster than Pioneer 10 . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2002 - 03 - 02 </Td> <Td> Successful reception of telemetry. 39 minutes of clean data received from a distance of 79.83 AU </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2002 - 04 - 27 </Td> <Td> Last successful reception of telemetry. 33 minutes of clean data received from a distance of 80.22 AU </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2003 - 01 - 23 </Td> <Td> Final signal received from the spacecraft . Reception was very weak and subsequent signals were barely strong enough to detect . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2003 - 02 - 07 </Td> <Td> Unsuccessful attempt to contact spacecraft </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2005 - 12 - 30 </Td> <Td> Pioneer 10 was projected to be 89.7 AU, traveling at a velocity of 12.51 kilometers / second (28,000 miles / hour), which is approximately 0.000041 the speed of light . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 2009 - 10 - </Td> <Td> Projections indicate that Pioneer 10 reached 100 AU . At this point, the spacecraft is approximately 271,000 AU from the nearest star (other than the Sun), Proxima Centauri . </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> More </Th> </Tr>

When did pioneer 10 leave the solar system