13 Most Iconic Science Pictures Ever Taken

7. Pioneer Plaque

pioneer plaque
NASA/HQ

It may not look like much, but the simple illustrations of the Pioneer plaque contain all you need to know about the human race.

The plaque was affixed to the 1972 Pioneer 10 and 1973 Pioneer 11 spacecraft. These probes were the first spacecraft to actually leave the solar system and the plaques are designed to be read and understood by any passing alien that happens to pick it up.

The illustrations of the nude human figures are drawn to scale with a diagram of the probe itself, to indicate our size. The spider-like diagram on the left is a map of our solar system's position, relative to the centre of the galaxy and 14 local pulsars and the diagram of our solar system indicates the origin of the craft.

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