The goal of this mission was to do a study on Jupiter and its moons. It did this with a great deal of success as the wealth of knowledge possessed about the moon does owe their existence to this brave mission. Other than the information about the Jupiter moons, the mission has provided a wealth of knowledge on other solar system bodies including asteroids and comets. The planet Jupiter has four moons which will be analyzed briefly in the paper. The Galileo probe was important in providing extra information on the moons. The focus will also be on highlighting the Galileo mission, stating the problems they faced and discussing the discoveries they made outside Jupiter.
Io
The surface of the moon lacks impact craters. The surface is entirely covered with huge volcanoes. Cases of volcanic eruptions are common. The eruptions are responsible for the production of sulfur gas. The lava produced during an eruption is hot and is orange and red in color. All the activities that occur in Io are as a result of the heat generated at its center. Bulges are created on Io's surface as a result of the force that is needed to keep it in a synchronous rotation with Jupiter. Io experiences constant change in size and orientation causing friction that creates enough heat for the volcanic eruption. Io, just like any other moon is in an orbital resonance with the planet Jupiter. Io completes four orbits across Jupiter (Galli et al., 2015).
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Europa
The surface of Europa consists of water ice. It has a fractured appearance that evidences the occurrence of tidal heating. Impact craters do not exist on the icy surface. Europa possesses a metallic core and a rocky mantle. The rocky interior is surrounded by an icy layer that is approximated to be 100 kilometers thick. The tidal friction in Europa has been implicated in providing sufficient heat to melt the ice into water that lies beneath the ice shell. It is also believed that Europa has got oceans whose water is twice that found on the earth (Galli et al., 2015).
Ganymede
It is the largest moon in the solar system. The surface of the moon is also made of icy water. The only difference with Europa in that respect is that in Ganymede, the surface exhibits signs of varying age. There are regions that heavily cratered, depicting that they have stayed for over a billion years. Areas with minimal craters show that the materials in the regions are geologically younger. Subsurface oceans are also believed to exist in this moon. The cause of the ocean is believed to be the tidal heating that melts the ice under the surface. However, Ganymede has a weaker tidal force meaning that the tidal heating is lesser compared to that in Io and Europa. Therefore, insufficient heat is produced to make an ocean of liquid water.
Callisto
It is the outermost Galilean moon. It is among the heavily cratered satellites in the entire solar system. The moon surface is extremely icy. Below the ice-laden crust their lies a salty ocean that is supported by an interior that is deep and rocky. There are no large mountains in Callisto. Worth noting also is that Callisto does not show any evidence of volcanic or tectonic activity hence does not have the production of heat.
The Galileo Probe
The Galileo probe was a mission that involved a spacecraft which examined Jupiter and its moons for a long period. Despite experiencing mechanical problems, it brought with it many discoveries that have helped to understand the planet Jupiter even more. Among the major discoveries accomplished by the Galileo probe include finding the first evidence for liquid water oceans in the beneath of Europa’s icy surface. It also led to the discovery of salt water below the surfaces of Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. The Galileo spacecraft also led to the discovery that Europa has a metallic core and a rocky mantle. It also revealed that the reason why moon Io had extensive and resurfacing surface was because of volcanism.
The Galileo Mission
The Galileo mission was an American spacecraft that studied Jupiter and its moons. It also studied other several solar system bodies. The year for its launching was on 18th October 1989. During the mission, it arrived in Jupiter on 7th December 1995 and became the first ever spacecraft to orbit the Jupiter. The first probe it did on Jupiter was to measure its atmosphere. Some of their first missions included achieving the first asteroid flyby and discovering an asteroid moon known as Dactyl (Khurana et al ., 2014).
Difficulties experienced by the spacecraft during the journey to the moon include a scenario where the main antenna failed to deploy. It forced the astronauts to resort to a backup antenna which had a slower transmission rate. The spacecraft lacked enough fuel to reach Jupiter, and therefore they had to borrow energy from Venus and Earth. In 2003 September, 21 Galileo collided with Jupiter's surface destroying the spacecraft deliberately to protect its discoveries on Europa as asserted by Khurana et al ., (2014).
Other than the moons, the spacecraft mission discovered an intense radiation belt around the cloud on top of Jupiter. It was the very first air body to fly past an asteroid, and it also discovered an asteroid moon. The mission was also important in the discovery of helium as a component of the sun. It was also instrumental in the deployment of the first probe to sample the atmospheres of several other planets. The spacecraft visited both Gaspra and Ida asteroids. It also provided an observation of a comet colliding with a planet (Langevin et al ., 2016).
References
Galli, A., Pommerol, A., Wurz, P., Jost, B., Scheer, J. A., Vorburger, A., & Barabash, S. (2015). Experimental study of surface erosion processes of the icy moons of Jupiter. ArXiv preprint arXiv: 1509.04008 .
Khurana, K. K., Kivelson, M. G., Stevenson, D. J., Schubert, G., Russell, C. T., Walker, R. J., & Polanskey, C. (2014). Galileo Mission.
Langevin, Y., Piccioni, G., Dumesnil, C., Filacchione, G., & Poulet, F. (2016, October). MAJIC (Moons and Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer): the VIS-NIR imaging spectrometer of the JUICE mission. In AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 48).
