This Week on Galileo - January 27 - February 2, 1997
As Galileo emerges from behind the Sun, DSN antennas on Earth are once again able to hear Galileo's radio signal. The further Galileo gets from the Sun in the sky, the clearer the signal will get. This week the Sun's affect on Galileo's radio signal is small enough to restart the playback of recorded data.
This week's playback includes a variety of observations taken during Galileo's first close encounter with Europa. Most prominent in this week's plans are observations taken of features in Jupiter's atmosphere known as Hot Spots. The observations scheduled for playback this week were taken by SSI, NIMS and PPR. Recall that Hot Spots are areas of the atmosphere where the clouds are relatively clear. These clear regions allow energy from the deeper, warmer layers to escape into space. These observations are the deepest Galileo will be able to "see" into Jupiter's atmosphere. Also recall that Galileo's atmospheric probe penetrated Jupiter's atmosphere very near a Hot Spot back in December 1995.
Observations of Io make up most of the remaining portion of the playback plans. A global 6-color observation of Io by SSI, global thermal day and night side observations by PPR and spatial and spectral observations by NIMS are all returned during this week. Recall that during the last encounter, Galileo's flyby of Io was the second closest (after the pass during the Callisto-3 orbit) of the orbital tour.
This week's playback plans are rounded off by observations designed to increase the global and regional imagery of selected targets. A regional map of Europa, a global 4-color map of Amalthea and a global 3-color map of Thebe are all scheduled for transmission to Earth. All of these were taken by SSI.