SPACE — On December 8, 1990, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft flew past Earth again on its way to the planet Jupiter. Named after the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei, the Galileo probe was the first spacecraft to study Jupiter and its moons over an extended period of time.
Galileo flew past Earth twice on his way to Jupiter to gain speed. The second flyby occurred two years later on December 8, 1992. Galileo arrived at Jupiter five years after its launch on December 7, 1995.
It orbited Jupiter for eight years before NASA sent it into the planet’s atmosphere. NASA deliberately destroyed Galileo by crashing it into Jupiter on September 21, 2003, so as not to risk contaminating Jupiter’s moons with bacteria from Earth. Source: Space.com
2023-12-08 14:25:00
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