Galileo s Europa
Explanation:
Launched in 1989 and looping through the jovian system since late
1995, the voyage of NASA's
Galileo
spacecraft will soon come to an end.
The spacecraft has been
targeted to plunge
directly
into
Jupiter this Sunday, September 21st, at about 30 miles per second.
Its components will be vaporized in the
gas giant's outer atmosphere.
While Galileo's long voyage of exploration
has resulted in a spectacular
scientific
legacy,
the spacecraft's ultimate fate is related to perhaps
its most
tantalizing
discovery -- strong evidence for a
liquid ocean
beneath the frozen surface of Jupiter's
moon
Europa.
Galileo is now almost completely out of fuel for maneuvers,
so this intentional collision with Jupiter will prevent
any unintentional future collision with Europa
and the possibility of contaminating the jovian moon with
microbes from Earth
hardy enough to survive in interplanetary space.
Color
image data from the Galileo mission recorded between
1995 and 1998 was used to create this depiction of
Europa's cracked and icy surface.
The inset
shows dark reddish, disrupted regions dubbed Thera and Thrace.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
