Galileo
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Artist's concept of Galileo
Artist's concept of Galileo. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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The Galilean Satellites
This composite includes the four largest moons of Jupiter which are known as the Galilean satellites. Shown from left to right are Io, closest to Jupiter, followed by Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
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Asteroid Ida and its Satellite Dactyl in Enhanced Color
During its examination of the asteroid Ida, NASA's Galileo spacecraft returned images of a second object, Dactyl--the first confirmed satellite or moon of an asteroid; the much smaller moon is visible to the right of Ida.
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Global Callisto in Color
Bright scars on a darker surface testify to a long history of impacts on Jupiter's moon Callisto in this image of Callisto from NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
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Ganymede Color Global
Natural color view of Ganymede from NASA's Galileo spacecraft during its first encounter with the satellite. The dark areas are the older, more heavily cratered regions and the light areas are younger, tectonically deformed regions.
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Venus Cloud Patterns (colorized and filtered)
This picture of Venus was taken by the NASA's Galileo spacecraft's Solid State Imaging System on February 14, 1990, at a range of almost 1.7 million miles from the planet.
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Active Volcanic Plumes on Io
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Three Views of Io
Three full-disk color views of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io as seen by NASA's Galileo spacecraft are shown in enhanced color to highlight details of the surface.
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Context of Europa images from Galileo
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Io - Full Disk Centered on Media Regio
The mottled face of Jupiter's volcanically active moon Io as viewed by NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
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Mission Summary
While its aim was to study Jupiter and its mysterious moons, which it did with much success, NASA's Galileo mission also became notable for discoveries during its journey to the gas giant. It was the first spacecraft to visit an asteroid -- two in fact, Gaspra and Ida. Galileo provided the only direct observations of a comet colliding with a planet. And its flight past Venus in 1990 yielded fascinating infrared images of the planet's clouds.
After discoveries including evidence for the existence of a saltwater ocean beneath the Jovian moon Europa's icy surface, extensive volcanic processes on the moon Io and a magnetic field generated by the moon Ganymede, Galileo plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere on September 21, 2003 to prevent an unwanted impact with Europa.
Scientific Instrument(s)
- Spacecraft:
- Solid-state imaging camera
- Near-infrared mapping spectrometer
- Ultraviolet spectrometer
- Photopolarimeter radiometer
- Magnetometer
- Energetic particles detector
- Plasma wave spectrometer
- Dust detector
- Heavy ion counter
Atmospheric probe:
- Helium abundance detector
- Atmospheric structure instrument
- Neutral mass spectrometer
- Nephelometer
- Net flux radiometer
- Lightning and radio emission detector
