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This Week on Galileo

June 14-20, 1999

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Galileo's Primary Activity This Week Is
Playback of Images / Other Science Data

Playback of images and other science data is Galileo's primary activity this week. The data were acquired by Galileo's instruments and stored on the spacecraft's onboard tape recorder during an encounter with Jupiter and its moon Callisto in early May. Playback is interrupted twice this week. On Tuesday, it is paused for a turn that will keep the spacecraft's antenna pointed toward Earth and for a standard gyroscope performance test. On Saturday, playback is interrupted to perform standard maintenance on the spacecraft's propulsion systems.

This week's playback is part of the second pass through the data stored on the spacecraft's tape recorder. This second opportunity allows the replay of data lost in transmission to Earth, reprocessing of data using different parameters, or return of additional new data. All data played back this week are from observations made by the solid-state imaging camera and Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer.

The solid-state imaging camera returns the bulk of this week's data. In several observations of Jupiter's atmosphere, the camera returns images showing the evolution of atmospheric waves along the equator, cloud motions in Jupiter's north and south equatorial belts, and in a high speed jet in the northern hemisphere. The camera also returns an observation of Jupiter's aurora that will allow scientists to measure its vertical structure at high resolution.

The camera returns one observation of Ganymede this week. The observation fills a gap in data obtained in previous orbits designed to provide a global description of the size and shape of Ganymede. The imaging camera then moves on to return three observations of Callisto. The first captures a dark feature that could provide evidence of ancient volcanism. The second observation contains dark terrain that was imaged through seven different color filters, and the third contains images designed to be used to gather statistics on the size distribution of craters on Callisto's surface. These crater statistics will enable scientists to estimate the age of Callisto's surface and understand crater distribution in different regions of the surface.

The near-infrared mapping spectrometer returns one observation this week. The observation contains measurements that will allow scientists to determine the chemical composition in a region of Callisto's surface.

For more information on the Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter, please visit the Galileo home page.

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Last updated: June 14, 1999
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