in recent years NASA shuttle fleet has
launched a trio spacecraft beginning a
second phase of robotic exploration of
our solar system initially sent to every
planet except Pluto their travels
confirmed planetary atmospheres
reminiscent of early Earth evidence of
water active volcanoes planetary rings
and even giant storms were discovered
the new phase of exploration provides
even more in-depth studies in October
1990 the Ulysses spacecraft began a
five-year journey it was built by the
European Space Agency to learn more
about the Sun Jupiter is the ultimate
destination for NASA's Galileo
spacecraft launched in October 1989
after reaching the giant gaseous planet
in late 1995 Galileo would deploy a tiny
probe to penetrate the atmosphere and
radio back data at the same time the
main orbiter will use its complement of
12 experiments to study Jupiter's
sixteen moons its atmosphere radiation
and magnetic fields traveling to Jupiter
requires a series of gravity assists
giving the spacecraft to push by
visiting Venus once then earth twice
before making the final leg to Jupiter
this is what Galileo saw when it
recently came within 600 miles of Earth
on its first pass hundreds of images
were combined over a 25 hour period to
give a view never seen before of the
whole earth in motion images of the moon
were also taken which include rare
glimpses of its far side Earth's sister
planet Venus is similar in size density
and position in the solar system but
very different in geology and climate
making it an important candidate for
study in May of 1989 the Atlantis
shuttle poll released the spacecraft
Magellan on a mission to map the entire
surface of Venus the elegant yet simple
mapper carries one instrument a
high-resolution radar that sees through
the planet's thick cloud choked
atmosphere mapping has just begun at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena California investigators like
dr. Jim head a geologist at Brown
University are already seeing features
that set this planet apart from all
others the detail of the Magellan images
and their crispness is so incredibly
it's these are these are just like
pieces of art you know we sit and we
look at these almost an AW some raw data
has also been processed into movies that
bring out the desolate lava-filled
landscape making up so much of the
Venusian surface old areas unspoiled by
lava flows are intriguing to
investigators because they show little
sign of being eroded if you said to
someone gee you know we have this planet
here that has this incredibly hot dense
atmosphere and by the way it sort of
rained sulfuric acid and so on
you know you get this vision of things
are rotating away completely and no
record of anything but it's quite to the
contrary in fact the very dense
atmosphere keeps these small projectiles
that would come in from outer space off
the surface and the very high surface
temperatures mean that there's no liquid
water and we're able to look at the
surface and see an crisp rich detail the
nature of the geological processes that
are operating much more so than we're
able to do on the earth
in the coming years as the United States
and its international partners continue
planetary exploration the spacecraft
Ulysses Galileo and Magellan will play
key roles ultimately leading to a better
understanding of our home planet
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