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Originally Posted by Kizarvexis
I found this near the end interesting.
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Finally, considering that the Pioneer spacecrafts are submitted to such an acceleration of about ?8. x 10-8 cm/s2 while moving through an enormous Kuiper and Oort cloud, the spacecrafts will absorb that dust due to the mechanism of accretion of dust. After millions of years of accretion, these spacecrafts will become larger and larger in time, while slowing down (unless reaccelerated later by other bodies). Pioneer spacecrafts will become the nucleus of asteroids flying away from the solar system with the interstellar dust.
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So if in a million years Pioneer 11 passes near an alien civilization, they may not know it is artificial and think it is just another pile of rock and dust? So much for worrying about whether some alien will understand the plaque or not. 
Kizarvexis |
Heh. Can you imagine if
that's what killed off the dinosaurs?
A giant asteroid that started life off as an alien probe, and then fell to Earth killing the dinos off. Bummer that.