Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utastro.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!utastro!dipper From: dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) Newsgroups: net.astro Subject: StarDate: March 5 The Voyager Encounter with Jupiter Message-ID: <1060@utastro.UUCP> Date: Tue, 5-Mar-85 02:00:53 EST Article-I.D.: utastro.1060 Posted: Tue Mar 5 02:00:53 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Mar-85 11:54:53 EST Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX Lines: 40 NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft was the first to get a good look at Jupiter and its moons. More -- in just a few moments. March 5 The Voyager Encounter with Jupiter Just six years ago, on this date in 1979, NASA's Voyager 1 encountered the planet Jupiter. It was the third spacecraft ever to visit Jupiter -- but the first to see it well. Voyager 1 revealed so many surprises about Jupiter and its moons that one mission scientist said, "Our sense of novelty couldn't have been greater if we'd explored a different solar system!" Before Voyager, Jupiter was seen from Earth as a fuzzy ball crossed with red and tan cloud bands. We'd also seen the Red Spot -- a great storm on Jupiter -- as wide as two planet Earths. But Voyager revealed much more -- chaotic structure within the cloud bands -- horizontal currents and oval-shaped storms raging in the Jovian atmosphere. Voyager also found a ring around Jupiter -- smaller and far more tenuous than Saturn's glorious rings -- but still a major discovery. But the biggest surprise wasn't Jupiter -- it was Jupiter's moons. The disks of the four Galilean satellites are barely visible through powerful earthbound telescopes. It took a spacecraft to see these moons as they are -- new worlds to explore. Like Earth and maybe Venus, Jupiter's moon Io has active volcanos. Europa has a smooth surface layer of ice -- with a possible liquid ocean underneath. Ganymede, the largest moon, is half-cratered -- but half-scarred by the shifting of its surface crust. Meanwhile, the surface of Callisto is all craters -- bearing a record unchanged since the early days of the solar system -- to be read by explorers from the blue and green planet Earth. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin