SScience
On September 21, 2003, controllers drove Galileo into Jupiter at nearly 108,000 miles per hour. The spacecraft had found evidence of a saltwater ocean beneath Europa’s ice, and with its propellant running low, NASA could not guarantee that the unsterilized orbiter would never crash into the potentially habitable moon carrying microbes from Earth.
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On September 21, 2003, controllers drove Galileo into Jupiter at nearly 108,000 miles per hour. The spacecraft had found evidence of a saltwater ocean beneath Europa’s ice, and with its propellant running low, NASA could not guarantee that the unsterilized orbiter would never crash into the potentially habitable moon carrying microbes from Earth.

  • September 11, 2026
Galileo’s last journey was planned, not accidental. On 21 September 2003, the orbiter entered Jupiter’s atmosphere at 48.2…