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Galileo arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet. [4] The Jet Propulsion Laboratory built the Galileo spacecraft and managed the Galileo program for NASA. West Germany's Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm supplied the propulsion module.
Ganymede (Jupiter III), the third Galilean moon, is named after the mythological Ganymede, cupbearer of the Greek gods and Zeus's beloved. [41] Ganymede is the largest natural satellite in the Solar System at 5262.4 kilometers in diameter, which makes it larger than the planet Mercury – although only at about half of its mass [ 42 ] since ...
The primary mission ended in December 1997, two years after Jupiter arrival. [1] The Galileo mission used a two-character code to specify each orbit. The first character was the first letter of the name of the moon that would receive a flyby on the orbit, while the second character indicated the number of the orbit.
Better data can be obtained from a spacecraft which is orbiting Jupiter, as it can encounter Ganymede at a lower speed and adjust the orbit for a closer approach. In 1995, the Galileo spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter and between 1996 and 2000 made six close flybys of Ganymede. [40] These flybys were denoted G1, G2, G7, G8, G28 and G29. [23]
The internal structure of Ganymede. Galileo 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. [217] Images of the surface revealed two types of terrain: highly cratered dark regions and grooved terrain sulcus. Images of the Arbela Sulcus taken on G28 made Ganymede look more ...
Image credits: NASA NASA has been discussing the journey to the icy moon since the Galileo spacecraft, which orbited Jupiter in 1995 and finished its mission in 1997.. The National Research ...
The Galileo spacecraft was the first to enter orbit around Jupiter, arriving in 1995 and studying it until 2003. During this period, Galileo gathered a large amount of information about the Jovian system, making close approaches to all of the Galilean moons and finding evidence for thin atmospheres on three of them, as well as the possibility ...
The spacecraft is making a 4.1 billion-mile journey which will take more than eight years. Europe’s Juice spacecraft lifts off to explore Jupiter’s moons Skip to main content