This Week On Galileo - July 13-19, 1998
Galileo spends this week preparing for its next encounter with Jupiter and its moons. The encounter features the fifth close flyby of Jupiter's icy moon Europa since the start of the Galileo Europa Mission. Encounter activities are scheduled to start late Sunday night, July 19 (Pacific Time).
Before encounter begins, Galileo must complete the playback of data written to its tape recorder during the spacecraft's previous passage through the heart of the Jupiter system in early June. All of this data will be overwritten by new science observations during the upcoming encounter.
Preparations for the next encounter include, regular maintenance on the spacecraft's onboard tape recorder and propulsion system, and the spacecraft's anomalous gyroscope is tested to keep track of how it is performing. Finally, the spacecraft executes any final flight path corrections required prior to the close Europa flyby.
This week's playback activities are designed to fill gaps in previously returned data, select entirely new data, or re-process data with different parameters. Science data from Europa, Jupiter and Io are returned this week.
Regional and global scale information on Europa is returned by the near infrared spectrometer, and a mosaic of unexplored terrain near Europa's terminator is returned by the spacecraft camera. Three other observations returned by the near infrared mapping spectrometer were taken 16, 20, and 22 hours after the closest approach to Europa in early June. The spectrometer's 16, 20, and 22 hour observations will provide high resolution spectra that is low in noise due to the fact that radiation noise decreases roughly in proportion to the spacecraft's distance from Jupiter. These spectra will be used to help identify non-ice components of the surface.
The spacecraft camera returns two observations of Io taken while the moon was eclipsed from the sun by Jupiter. The third and fourth in a series, they are designed to allow scientists to study the changes in Io's surface temperature as the eclipse progresses. Toward the end of the week, the near infrared spectrometer returns portions of two observations of Io's surface. Included in these data is information that may lead to the discovery of a newly formed hot spot on Io.
Finally, three observations of Jupiter, performed by the near infrared spectrometer, are returned this week. All three observations will provide information on the differences in temperature and composition that can be found across Jupiter's cloud belts and cloud zones.
Don't forget about Galileo's next encounter, starting on Sunday night. In fact, come back on Sunday for the return of Today on Galileo!!!!