"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
October 18, 1989
Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist a. k. a. “VEEGA” was a first Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist a.k.a. “VEEGA” was a first. The mission planning guys figured out how to do that with Galileo.
"My car license plate says `VEEGA,' …Every morning, I go out and I see the word.” Roger Diehl Trajectory specialist
Venus flyby February 10, 1990
Goodbye Home December 11, 1990, from about 1.3 million miles away.
Galileo discovered Dactyl orbiting the asteroid Ida.
"I popped in these two wonderful 8x10’s and became the first human being to see a stereo image of an asteroid at high resolution! That entire weekend, anyone who came close to my door was dragged over: ’Look at this!’ You know, the mailman, the babysitter. That was really a thrill." Paul Geissler Planetary geologist
Galileo was the first spacecraft to observe an impact into a planetary body, when comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter.
July 22, 1994
First probe into a gas giant’s atmosphere
“With only a week to go, I'm really excited “With only a week to go, I'm really excited. It's hard to sleep at night… I have to just give up … and write out what I'm thinking… Even doing that I can't always get back to sleep, but sometimes it works.” Jim Erickson November 27, 1995 Probe Release
“The signal came about 6 minutes later than I had been expecting, so I was getting very fearful that something had gone wrong. When the confirmation finally came through, I was nearly in tears from the joy of knowing that we had done it!” Leslie Tamppari December 11, 1995 Probe Release
Galileo discovered a possible ocean on Callisto.
Jupiter's moon Callisto
"We will never want to do on-board management of the tape recorder..." Famous last words: "We will never want to do on-board management of the tape recorder..."
Galileo discovered that Jupiter has thunderstorms 1,000 times larger than those on Earth.
Water Cloud Thunderstorm Northwest of Great Red Spot
Galileo observes thunderheads and lightning in Jupiter's atmosphere.
Jupiter Lightning
Galileo’s Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) discovers fresh ammonia clouds on Jupiter.
Jupiter's multi level clouds September 5, 1996
NIMS looks at the Great Red Spot
volcanic activity on Io. Galileo observes volcanic activity on Io.
Eruption on Io June 28, 1996
Io Oct. 16, 2001
Voyager-1979 Galileo - 1997
"There was always something to fix. It kept me busy.'' Greg Levanas Engineer
Volcanic plumes on Io
Color Mosaic and Active Volcanic Plumes on Io November 17, 1997
Io's Culann-Tohil Region
“New Galileo Images Hint At Wet And Wild History For Europa” NASA Press Release April 9, 1997
“Solar System's Largest Moon Likely has a Hidden Ocean” NASA Press Release Ganymede December 16, 2000
Ganymede - Ancient Impact Craters in Galileo Regio
Ganymede
Simultaneous observation of the Jupiter system by two spacecraft (Cassini and Galileo)
Galileo and Cassini spacecraft in late December 2000 and early January 2001.
Jupiter's rings found to be composed of debris from Jupiter's small inner satellites
Jupiter's Inner Satellites and Rings
Jupiter's Inner Satellites and Ring Components
Jupiter's Ring System
Jupiter's Main Ring/Ring Halo
"It's not going to go on forever. Everything has to end. It's going to be a sad day though.” Andy Ingersoll Scientist
“If we found life someplace else it would give us a vastly new perspective on existence. We would probably realize that we weren't quite so important as we thought we were. I mean, it might take us down a peg, which … could be useful.” Randy Tufts Former geologist at the University of Arizona (1949-2002)
We will be back