Galileo Gets 2 More Years At Jupiter

Deglr6328 writes "The Galileo space probe, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 1995, has received it's third and final mission extension from NASA. Galileo will remain in the Jovian system for 2 more years and 5 orbits studying Callisto, Io and Amalthea, then the spacecraft will take an elongated loop away from Jupiter and head back for a direct impact and burn in Jupiter's atmosphere. The extension will cost $9 million and was approved by the National Academy of Sciences which originally had concerns about it potentially contaminating Europa."

Comments

Good news everyone!

[gavinhall]

Posted by hairy_palms:

I'm happy to hear that news. I think that jupiter and its moons can teach us alot about our solar system and many other things. Not to mention that there could be life on one of its moons. I think we should send more probes to check out jupiter, and stop messing with mars, i think that if we will ever find life somewhere besides here, one of jupiters moons is our best bet. Plus, i don't think we've ever crashed a billion or so dollar probe into jupiter. And we've done it to mars, so how about we make things fair? Why not crash one into one of its moons. Now theres an idea.

Thats it, enough of your crap...listen to some of mine!

Re:Good news everyone!

[M'ryheraal]

In addition to gathering more information about the moons than anticipated, the little craft should give us some valuable info about the composition of Jupiter. I mean, looking at gas spectra is one thing, but direct measurement can be quite revealing. For instance, the layers can mask each other, and temperatures are hard to measure from a distance. This all assumes that it will survive the enormous electromagnetic field that the gas giant produces; signals might not be able to pass through relatively unchanged from any surviving spacecraft anyway. BTW, NASA should consider Io or Ganymede as crash sites. An "extreme closeup" :-) of Ganymede might reveal or at least shed light upon the origin of the tracklike patterns on its surface. Or maybe solve the mystery of whether either of the moons has a subterranean sea. There is a good chance that Ganymede does, based on massings and spectra analysis. Io isn't as mysterious, but crashing there would give us a view that no sane spacecraft would attempt to acheive, and maybe worthwhile questions or insights could be gleaned from the photos. Or just some great eye-candy!

Binary star

[michaelmalak]

I guess the Illuminati now has a two-year window in which to announce the New World Order and reveal the anti-Christ.

Watch out...

[SpanishInquisition]

for that black monolith!
--

Is it a good idea to crash it into Jupiter ?

[RedLaggedTeut]

Speaking on an entirely hypothetic level, I am not sure whether it is a good idea to crash it into jupiter - how do we know there isn't some kind of solaris-style intelligence on jupiter which takes this as an assault ?

I was about to propose to send it off outside of the system, maybe towards alpha centauri, when I realized it doesn't probably have that much fuel left to do that.

Good News indeed...

[TWX_the_Linux_Zealot]

While operating the craft is relatively expensive (compared to driving a car or eating lunch) the fact that it's already there and still working is a really good sign to the machine's manufacture. That $9 million is pocket change compared to more complex operations that are engaged in on a regular basis, and is nothing compared to defense (read war standby) preparations. We need to do more like this, missions that are not hype and may not have immediate popular return, but allow for real science to have a chance of prevailing.

"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."

Galileo Dream

[Diplomat73]

I guess it was Galileo's dream to continue.