Galileo project was an American robotic space program that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as several other Solar System bodies.
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30 Facts About Galileo project
3.
Galileo project discovered that Jupiter's faint ring system consists of dust from impacts on the four small inner moons.
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4.
Galileo project made two small course corrections on 9 to 12 April and 11 to 12 May 1990.
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5.
The magnetosphere was quite active at the time, and Galileo project detected magnetic storms and whistlers caused by lightning strikes.
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6.
Galileo project had indeed found what are now referred to as the "Sagan criteria for life".
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7.
Galileo project experiments were thus the first ever controls in the newborn science of astrobiological remote sensing.
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8.
False color mosaic by Galileo project showing compositional variations of the Moon's surface.
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9.
The Galileo project was able to secure 80 hours of the Canberra's 70-meter dish time between 7 and 14 November 1991, but most of images taken, including low-resolution images of more of the surface, were not transmitted to Earth until November 1992.
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10.
Galileo project prime mission was a two-year study of the Jovian system, but while it was en route, an unusual opportunity arose.
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11.
When Galileo project observed an impact in ultraviolet light, it lasted for about ten seconds, but in the infrared it persisted for 90 seconds or more.
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12.
The Galileo project orbiter was still on a collision course with Jupiter.
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13.
Galileo project flew past Io on arrival day, but in the interest of protecting the tape recorder, O'Neil decided to forego collecting images.
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14.
Not all of the planned activities could be carried out, but Galileo project obtained a series of high-resolution color images of the Pillan Patera, and Zamama, Prometheus, and Pele volcanic eruption centers.
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15.
The safe mode event caused a loss of tape playback time, but the Galileo project managers decide to carry over some Io data into orbit G28, and play it back then.
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16.
Accordingly, on orbit I31, Galileo project passed within 200 kilometers of the surface of the north pole of Io, and on orbit I32 it flew 181 kilometers over the south pole.
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17.
On I31 Galileo project sped through an area that had been in the plume of the Tvashtar Paterae volcano, and it was hoped that the plume could be sampled.
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18.
Galileo project returned to Europa on E6 in January 1997, this time at a height of 586 kilometers to analyze oval-shaped features in the infrared and ultraviolet spectra.
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19.
NIMS observations by Galileo project indicated that the surface of Europa appeared to contain magnesium and sodium salts.
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20.
Galileo project yielded evidence that the crust of Europa had slipped over time, moving south on the hemisphere facing Jupiter, and north on the far side.
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21.
When Galileo project entered Jovian orbit, it did so at an inclination to the Jovian equator, and therefore the orbital plane of the four Galilean moons.
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22.
Galileo project returned to Ganymede on orbits G7 and G9 in April and May 1997, and on G28 and G29 in May and December 2000 on the GMM.
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23.
Galileo project visited Callisto on orbits C3, C9 and C100 during the prime mission, and then on C20, C21, C22 and C23 during the GEM.
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24.
Galileo project made its closest encounter with Callisto on C30, when it made a 138-kilometer pass over the surface, during which it photographed the Asgard, Valhalla and Bran craters.
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25.
NASA engineers were able to recover the damaged tape recorder electronics, and Galileo project continued to return scientific data until it was deorbited in 2003, performing one last scientific experiment: a measurement of Amalthea's mass as the spacecraft swung by it.
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26.
Galileo project star scanner was a small optical telescope that provided an absolute attitude reference.
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27.
Work-arounds were found eventually for all of these problems, and Galileo project was never rendered entirely non-functional by Jupiter's radiation.
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28.
The radiation limits for Galileo project computers were based on data returned from Pioneers 10 and 11, since much of the design work was underway before the two Voyagers arrived at Jupiter in 1979.
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29.
About 10 minutes after the closest approach of the Amalthea flyby, Galileo project stopped collecting data, shut down all of its instruments, and went into safe mode, apparently as a result of exposure to Jupiter's intense radiation environment.
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30.
Galileo project had not been sterilized prior to launch and could have carried bacteria from Earth.
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