Below is a list of artificial objects escaping from our Solar System

Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

. All of these objects are space probes and their upper stages launched by NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 space agency, and do not include those missions that went into orbit around planets.

• Pioneer 10
  Pioneer 10
  Pioneer 10 is a 258-kilogram robotic space probe that completed the first interplanetary mission to Jupiter, and became the first spacecraft to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System. The project was managed by the NASA Ames Research Center and the contract for the construction of the...
  
  – Launched in 1972, flew past Jupiter
  Jupiter
  Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
  
   in 1973. Contact lost in January 2003 and is heading in the direction of Aldebaran
  Aldebaran
  Aldebaran is a red giant star located about 65 light years away in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. With an average apparent magnitude of 0.87 it is the brightest star in the constellation and is one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky...
  
   in Taurus
  Taurus (constellation)
  Taurus is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is a Latin word meaning 'bull', and its astrological symbol is a stylized bull's head:...
  
  .
• Pioneer 11
  Pioneer 11
  Pioneer 11 is a 259-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on April 6, 1973 to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter and Saturn, solar wind, cosmic rays, and eventually the far reaches of the solar system and heliosphere...
  
  – Launched in 1973, flew past Jupiter in 1974 and Saturn
  Saturn
  Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
  
   in 1979. Contact lost in November 1995. The spacecraft is headed toward the constellation of Aquila
  Aquila (constellation)
  Aquila is a stellar constellation. Its name is Latin for 'eagle' and it is commonly represented as such. In mythology, Aquila was owned by the Roman god Jupiter and performed many tasks for him....
  
   (The Eagle), Northwest of the constellation of Sagittarius
  Sagittarius (constellation)
  Sagittarius is a constellation of the zodiac, the one containing the galactic center. Its name is Latin for the archer, and its symbol is , a stylized arrow. Sagittarius is commonly represented as a centaur drawing a bow...
  
  . Barring incident, Pioneer 11 will pass near one of the stars in the constellation in about 4 million years.
• Voyager 1
  Voyager 1
  The Voyager 1 spacecraft is a 722-kilogram space probe launched by NASA in 1977, to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. Operating for as of today , the spacecraft receives routine commands and transmits data back to the Deep Space Network. At a distance of as of...
  
  – Launched in September 1977, flew past Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980, making a special close approach to Saturn's moon Titan
  Titan (moon)
  Titan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....
  
  . Probe entered the heliosheath around 2004 and is still active.
• Voyager 2
  Voyager 2
  The Voyager 2 spacecraft is a 722-kilogram space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977 to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space...
  
  – Launched in August 1977, flew past Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus
  Uranus
  Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus , the father of Cronus and grandfather of Zeus...
  
   in 1986, and Neptune
  Neptune
  Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times...
  
   in 1989. Probe has passed the heliosheath, but is still active.
• New Horizons
  New Horizons
  New Horizons is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission currently en route to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, Hydra and S/2011 P 1. Its estimated arrival date at the Pluto-Charon system is July 14th, 2015...
  
  – Launched in 2006, probe made flyby of Jupiter in 2007, will make a flyby of Pluto
  Pluto
  Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...
  
   in 2015. Flyby of Pluto may be followed by a flyby of a Trans-Neptunian object
  Trans-Neptunian object
  A trans-Neptunian object is any minor planet in the Solar System that orbits the Sun at a greater distance on average than Neptune.The first trans-Neptunian object to be discovered was Pluto in 1930...
  
   in the Kuiper belt
  Kuiper belt
  The Kuiper belt , sometimes called the Edgeworth–Kuiper belt, is a region of the Solar System beyond the planets extending from the orbit of Neptune to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, although it is far larger—20 times as wide and 20 to 200 times as massive...
  
  .
• New Horizons 3rd stage, a STAR-48 booster, is on a similar escape trajectory out of the solar system as New Horizons, but will pass millions of miles from Pluto
  Pluto
  Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...
  
  . It will probably cross Pluto's orbit in late 2015.

The only objects to date to be launched directly into a solar escape trajectory were the New Horizons spacecraft, its third stage and its two small de-spin masses. The New Horizons Centaur

Centaur (rocket stage)

Centaur is a rocket stage designed for use as the upper stage of space launch vehicles. Centaur boosts its satellite payload to geosynchronous orbit or, in the case of an interplanetary space probe, to or near to escape velocity...

 stage is not escaping, it is in a 2.83 year orbit.

Many of the upper stages of all these spacecraft except Pioneer 11 are also escaping the solar system as they initially followed a trajectory very close to that of their respective spacecraft and their subsequent encounters with Jupiter boosted them all into hyperbolic solar escape trajectories. The upper stage of Pioneer 11 is believed to be in solar orbit because its encounter with Jupiter would not have resulted in escape. Pioneer 11 gained the required velocity

Velocity

In physics, velocity is speed in a given direction. Speed describes only how fast an object is moving, whereas velocity gives both the speed and direction of the object's motion. To have a constant velocity, an object must have a constant speed and motion in a constant direction. Constant ...

to escape the Solar System in its subsequent encounter with Saturn.

Since the Pioneers were launched first, they had a head start on the Voyagers, but because they were traveling slower they were eventually overtaken for most distance from the Sun: Voyager 1 passed Pioneer 10 on February 17, 1998.

External links

• Spacecraft escaping the Solar System in heavens-above.com