The Galileo Project was a space program launched by the United States in 1989. On October 18 of that year, the Galileo spacecraft was sent into Earth’s orbitby a shuttlecalled Atlantis. However, Earth’s orbitwas far fromGalileo’s final destination. The objective of the project was to study Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, and its moons. The spacecraft eventually reached Jupiter on December 7, 1995. It later became the first spacecraft in history to orbit the giant planet.
The Galileo Project—named afterthe Italian scientist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)— was successful in recording some key data related to Jupiter, including the condition of its atmosphere. Furthermore, a number of significant findings were made regardingJupiter’s four largest moons (the so-called Galilean moons): Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Perhaps most notably, data collected about Europa supported a pre-existingtheory that this moon houses an ocean under the surface of ice that covers it. Finally, the Galileo spacecraft found that Jupiter’s ringsare composed ofdust from four of the planet’s smaller moons.
