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Modern exploration of Galileo's new worlds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2010

Torrence V. Johnson
Torrence V. Johnson*
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr. Pasadena CA, USA email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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Four hundred years ago Galileo turned his telescope to the heavens and changed the way we view the cosmos forever. Among his discoveries in January of 1610 were four new ‘stars’, following Jupiter in the sky but changing their positions with respect to the giant planet every night. Galileo showed that these ‘Medicean stars’, as he named them, were moons orbiting Jupiter in the same manner that the Earth and planets revolve about the Sun in the Copernican theory of the solar system. Over the next three centuries these moons, now collectively named the Galilean satellites after their discoverer, remained tiny dots of light in astronomers' telescopes. In the latter portion of the twentieth century Galileo's new worlds became important targets of exploration by robotic spacecraft. This paper reviews the history of this exploration through the discoveries made by the Galileo mission from 1995 to 2003, setting the stage for on-going exploration in the new century.

Keywords

History and philosophy of astronomyspace vehiclesplanets and satellites: individual (Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, Io, Jupiter)
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 6 , Symposium S269: Galileo's Medicean Moons: their impact on 400 years of discovery , January 2010 , pp. 49 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2010

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