In December 1995, the Galileo spacecraft finally arrived at the planet Jupiter.More than 6 yrs after it had been launched by NASA, the spacecraft's atmosphere probe, which had separated from the orbiter four months earlier, plunged through the gas giant's intense radiation belts and deep into the atmosphere. The  on-board electronic system had to be heavily shielded to protect them against the radiation and the temperature twice as hot as the Sun's surface. As the probe parachuted into Jupiter's atmosphere, pulled in by the enormous gravity, the orbiter passed close to the planet, receiving and storing information for later relay back to Earth. This was just the start of the Galileo mission - since 1995, the orbiter has been circling Jupiter and recording information about its weather and its planet- sized moons. Before ariving at Jupiter, Galileo photographed the impact of Comet P/Shoemaker- Levy 9 with Jupiter, the largest explosion ever seen in the Solar system. More recently, the spacecraft has phtographed volcanic activity on the moon Io, and found evidence of water beneath the icy crust of another moon, Europa.

below image: Galileo Spacecraft (zoomed)