This Week on Galileo November 19-25, 2001
The quiet of this holiday week is interrupted only briefly on Monday by a
test of the on-board gyroscopes.
The remainder of the week is filled with the steady collection of real-time
data by the Magnetometer, the Dust Detector, and the Extreme Ultraviolet
Spectrometer, and by the continued playback of recorded data from the
October 15 flyby of Io. A temporary problem with the onboard tape recorder
last week delayed playback for almost four days before it was cleared up,
but now we’re back to business as usual.
This week the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer will provide the views of
the volcanos Loki and Pele that were delayed from last week, as well as a
thermal map of the south polar region of Io. The Solid State Imaging camera
will provide pictures of Pele, and of a scarp or cliff feature named
Telgonus. It will also return high-resolution pictures of a lava channel in
the Emakong region.
From the Fields and Particles instruments, we will begin to see the return
of a 1.5-hour recording centered on the closest approach of Galileo to Io.
This recording provides an intensive study of the detailed interactions in
the environment near this extremely active satellite. Since this flyby
occurred at a far southerly latitude of nearly 79 degrees, these data will
provide an excellent contrast with data acquired on previous flybys over
the equatorial regions. Combining all of this data should give scientists a
more complete picture of the full three-dimensional structure of the
magnetospheric region that surrounds Io.
For more information on the Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter,
please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL’s:
