SUMMARY: We're only days away until Galileo's final plunge into Jupiter on September 21. Nearly out of fuel, the spacecraft was put onto a collision course with Jupiter to prevent it from accidentally crashing into Europa and potentially contaminating it with Earth-based bacteria. The entry point on Jupiter will be 1/4 of a degree south of its equator and it will strike the planet at 174,000 km/h - obviously it'll be destroyed almost instantly. Scientists hope to retrieve every piece of data they can, but the radiation will intensify to immense levels as the spacecraft nears the planet, so it might not be possible.


Comments or questions about this story? Feel free to share your thoughts.

Is Galilaeo at the end of its mission anyway? I mean does it still have enough power to keep running or is it nearly dead? If it still has power then why destroy it, let it orbit still?

They're crashing it into Jupiter to prevent it from falling to Europa and possibly contaminating the water there.

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"Human curiosity and the desire to make the intangible tangible, has led us into a new age where the New World has been settled, and the West has been won. But if you think that we, the human race, has conquered everything there is to conquer, then just look to the sky--at space--last and greatest of the frontiers."