This Week On Galileo
March 1-7, 1999
The Galileo spacecraft continues to return science data acquired during its most recent encounter with Europa last month. The data is stored on the spacecraft's onboard tape recorder. It must be retrieved from the tape recorder, then processed, compressed and packaged for transmission to Earth by the spacecraft's main computers. This process, also known as playback, is interrupted twice this week to perform engineering activities. On Monday, the spacecraft performs standard maintenance on its propulsion system. On Thursday, the spacecraft performs a small turn to ensure that its antenna remains pointed toward Earth.
Data from three observations are transmitted to Earth this week. In the first, the spacecraft camera obtained a series of images designed to capture Europa's bright limb and search for plumes against the dark sky. The second, taken by the near-infrared mapping spectrometer, was designed to search for a particular spectral signal that comes from ice in a hexagonal crystal structure. Both of these observations may provide evidence of recent cryo-volcanism on Europa.
The third data set of the week contains measurements from the fields and particles observation that was recorded during closest approach to Europa. The observation contains data on the plasma, dust, and magnetic and electric fields surrounding Europa. These data will improve the scientific understanding of the interaction of Europa with Jupiter's magnetosphere.