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Session 94 - New Dynamics and Views of the Solar System.
Oral session, Wednesday, January 15
Frontenac Ballroom,
The Galileo spacecraft, successfully inserted into orbit around Jupiter on December 7, 1995, has completed about one-half of its planned nominal mission to study the giant planet, its satellites and its magnetosphere. Close flybys of Ganymede, Callisto and Europa are yielding important new data on surface processes, composition, interior properties, and interactions with Jupiter's magnetosphere. Volcanic activity on Io and atmospheric phenomena on Jupiter continue to be monitored. By the end of the nominal mission in December 1997 carefully selected areas on Ganymede, Europa and Callisto will have been studied at resolutions 100 times better than those achieved by Voyager in 1979. More extensive high-resolution coverage of Europa, as well as imaging of Io at better than 100-meter resolution could be obtained during an extended mission phase.
