Galileo, the astronomer and the spacecraft

Galileo Galilei was an astronomer, physicist, engineer, mathematician, and more who was responsible for the rise of scientific research and observation during the Renaissance. His contributions to our understanding of the world are so important, considering he challenged the church and the entire system of thought the world had about how the Earth interacts with the rest of the solar system. He discovered that we revolved around the sun and he was condemned for the rest of his life for it by the church. His contributions to Jupiter were also important to our understanding of the vast planet and its moons, specifically the “Galillean moons”. The planet, being the largest in our solar system, is also the third brightest in the sky and easily identifiable for its brightness. It is considered to be a gas giant, being composed of hydrogen and helium. Galileo discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter and realized that they revolved around Jupiter, due to its immense gravitational pull. This was a crucial discovery which later helped him prove the heliocentricism theory that planets can have an orbit that is not around the Earth. In 1989, the Galileo orbiter was launched by NASA in the US and Germany to study Jupiter and the moons. Because of the immense pressure and gassy atmosphere and our technology right now, it is impossible for a human to get close to Jupiter to study, hence the unmanned spacecraft. The spacecraft also collected data from the moons, including Europa, which supported the idea of a liquid ocean under an icy surface that Europa consists of. It also collected data that Jupiter’s rings are made up of dust from the impacts of the four inner moons. The entire structure of Jupiter’s magnetosphere was also collected for data. The project incorporated the vague and limiting observations Galileo and earlier astronomers did with their limited technology and the clearer, yet not entirely demystified mission that the Galileo spacecraft went through. Looking at the Jupiter collage, it is made of tiny pictures of different things around Florence and mythological paintings of Jupiter, the Roman God. From far away however, it just looks like similar colors and textures meshing into one. This is how astronomers back then observers things. Everything far away was full of mythology and mystery, but when studied through a telescope, each part was a little more clear. The act of using an iPhone camera zoom as a telescope is a modern way of looking at things from far away to try and vaguely see details. The spacecraft however, is made up of the same material but jumbled up and less pieced together by parts which shows the clarity and understanding over time, without the mythology and mystery attached to it.