Galileo plunged into Jupiter's crushing atmosphere on Sept. 21,
2003. The spacecraft was deliberately destroyed to protect one
of its own discoveries - a possible ocean beneath the icy crust
of the moon Europa. Galileo changed the way we look at our solar
system. The spacecraft was the first to fly past an asteroid and
the first to discover a moon of an asteroid. It provided the
only direct observations of a comet colliding with a planet.
Galileo was the first to measure Jupiter's atmosphere with a
descent probe and the first to conduct long-term observations of
the Jovian system from orbit. It found evidence of subsurface
saltwater on Europa, Ganymede and Callisto and revealed the
intensity of volcanic activity on Read on to learn more about
the historic legacy of the Galileo mission.