In October of 1989 the Galileo spacecraft was launched from Earth orbit by the Space Shuttle Atlantis, its target was the gas giant Jupiter with a planned arrival date of December 1995.
The spacecraft was named after the 17th century Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter in 1610. On arrival the craft would study these moons as well as dispatching a small atmospheric probe into the depths of Jupiter.
Even before its arrival Galileo would witness an astonishing event, in 1994 fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 were hurtling towards Jupiter. Galileo was in a prime position to capture amazing images of the enormous impacts as the comet struck the atmosphere of the gas giant.
Five months before arriving at Jupiter, Galileo released the atmospheric probe, travelling at over 100,000 miles per hour the probe reached the planet five months later. The heat shields it had been equipped with protected it as it crashed through the upper atmosphere and it began to slowly descend with the aid of a parachute. The probe transmitted data for almost 1 and a half hours before it succumb to the intense pressures and high temperatures.
Galileo itself reached Jupiter in December 1995, becoming the first spacecraft to enter into orbit around the gas giant. Over the next 8 years the spacecraft would study the Jovian system in detail.
The mission revealed that Io was undergoing extensive re-surfacing due to constant volcanic activity, provided more evidence that Europa contained a warm interior ocean, and discovered that Ganymede was producing its own magnetic field, the only moon in the solar system known to do so.
New data was also revealed about Jupiter’s enormous magnetosphere, its ring system and the planet's interactions with it moons. The mission was a resounding success, giving us a greater understanding of the largest planet in the solar system and its intriguing moons.
Galileo was deliberately crashed into Jupiter to avoid contaminating the possible salt water ocean of Europa, disappearing into Jupiter’s atmosphere in September 2003.
