What Galileo Saw

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Alexander Valdiviezo Prof. John Esche HUM 102-001 9/16/2013 “What Galileo Saw” The article “What Galileo Saw” by Michael Benson published in September 8, 2003 by “The New York Times”, describes the obstacles and accomplishments done by the “Galileo” spacecraft. In the past eight years, the spacecraft called “Galileo” was known as the Orbiter who explored the four largest moons of Jupiter. During the time in space, it made detailed scientific observations which took thousands of high resolution photographs. Galileo took the closest photograph, half a billion miles away, of one of Jupiter’s moon. But Galileo’s extensive tour of the satellites of Jupiter ended on September 21 because it was programed to speed directly towards the gaseous atmosphere of Jupiter enabling the spacecraft to turn into ashes. Benson wrote his article out of order of the events occurred on Galileo’s travel to the satellites of Jupiter. Benson explains in his article about how fascinating NASA's Galileo project which made people persevered and challenge many problems that occurred in Galileo’s journey and how they were able to solve those problems. He talks about how the spacecraft Galileo in details of when the spacecraft was launched, it was destroyed and how it was destroyed. The problems encounter by the spacecraft that had to be redesigned like the high gain antenna broken, the tape backup, and the complete replacement of the software which was fixed through the radio is breathtaking. Is fascinating how simplicity and creativity the people had to make Galileo’s journey a success. An interesting thought from the article, in Galileo’s voyage had discovered that Europa (one of Jupiter’s satellite) which is made of ice has cracks. This proves that there is water underneath the ice which causes the ice to crack. Scientists were captivated by this for the reason that where there is

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