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Galileo's Final Blaze of Glory

Posted by timothy on from the what-a-way-to-go dept.

EccentricAnomaly writes: "CNN reports that the Galileo spacecraft is about to perform its last flyby of Io. Galileo will skim a mere 100 km above Io to enter a trajectory that crashes into Jupiter in 2003. This is to avoid the spacecraft running out of fuel and accidentally crashing into Europa which might contaminate it with any bacteria spores on Galileo. This is a real concern - Apollo 12 found bacteria on Surveyor 3 that survived two and a half years on the moon."

4 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. you dimwit by Max+Merciless · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Ermmm the namesake of this probe,Galileo, the father of modern astronomy and science was European... and I've heard American's are "smaller" on average than your red blooded European...

  2. Strange they survived on the moon... by cca93014 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    ...when no-one ever went there.

    Yeah, sure, analog electronics can be really powerful blah blah blah.

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  3. Re:As a matter of fact... by Doktor+Memory · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Ooooh, I can't make a fool out of myself on the beloved /. must I?

    Did I say you couldn't? Heaven forfend. By all means, continue. Let me be struck down by a meteorite the day I complain about receiving free entertainment like this.

    Lighten up

    As soon as you smarten up.

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  4. fast modem by LadyLucky · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Instead, the antenna jammed during its deployment in 1991, forcing scientists to rely on the probe's low-gain antenna and its pokey rate of 160 bits per second

    All it takes is one dose of "I am in a harry, I promise you will love it!" and that bad boy wont have any bandwidth for another year...

    Damned Outlook on the space probes. They should be using OSS!

    :-)

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