Complete Science Data Of Galileo Probe Mission? Options

[Dominik]

Hello there.

I've got a question about the science data of the galileo probe mission (Plunge into jupiters atmosphere).

Is it possible to download the complete dataset of the mission? If yes, where can I find those data? I've tried to find them with google, but I found nothing.

Thx for help...

(Sorry for my bad english. I don't use it so often, because I'm from germany )

[djellison]

Feasable perhaps, but fairly pointless I'd have thought. You know that bit on a plane flight when you're going thru the clouds and you cant see the end of the wing.....

That - plus the bandwidth from probe-to-orbiter was fairly poor I'd imagine, much like Huygens was.

Doug

[Dominik]

...the bandwidth from probe-to-orbiter was fairly poor I'd imagine, much like Huygens was.

3.8 Megabit of data was collected. Mostly scientific data from jupiters atmosphere. But I've seen some pictures from the galileo probe mission on TV some years ago. Those pictures were from the cloud structures (Below cloud top). They looked like radar pictures, but the probe did not have a radar.

Thanks for the link djellison. That is, what I was searching for.

[JRehling]

3.8 Megabit of data was collected. Mostly scientific data from jupiters atmosphere. But I've seen some pictures from the galileo probe mission on TV some years ago. Those pictures were from the cloud structures (Below cloud top). They looked like radar pictures, but the probe did not have a radar. 

Thanks for the link djellison. That is, what I was searching for.

The subcloud "pictures" I think you are referring to were reconstructed images based on models made from the Galileo *Orbiter*. Images made in different methane bands bring out detail from different depths. Those "visualizations" assumed that the clouds form three discrete thin sheets with clear air between them. Then they were colored. You can see lots of them here:

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo/atju...s/latitude.html

A descent probe into Jupiter has such limited bandwidth opportunity, and such limited payload mass, with such uncertain prospects for seeing *anything* that it is hard to rationalize a camera. The Galileo Probe instrument payload was about 25 kg or a bit more than that. Huygens's camera was 8.5 kg -- what third of Galileo's payload would you have gotten rid of to get what might be one or two totally featureless pictures, and even in a good case might have looked like BW pictures of terrestrial cumulus clouds?

[DDAVIS]

A descent probe into Jupiter has such limited bandwidth opportunity, and such limited payload mass, with such uncertain prospects for seeing *anything* that it is hard to rationalize a camera. The Galileo Probe instrument payload was about 25 kg or a bit more than that. Huygens's camera was 8.5 kg -- what third of Galileo's payload would you have gotten rid of to get what might be one or two totally featureless pictures, and even in a good case might have looked like BW pictures of terrestrial cumulus clouds?

Well, future probes may well have better data bandwidth than what you are used to. I don't see uncertainty about what a camera would see as good reason to assume a camera isn't desirable.

this may be apocrophal but I recall in my USGS days hearing talk about a debate on whether the Pioneer F abd G spacecraft should have any imaging capability at all, after all, what could possibly be interesting about cloud tops? As it was the imaging Photopolerimeter was a cheap crappy substitute for a camera which was better than nothing, but outclassed by the real cameras the Voyagerws later carried.

Don

[JRehling]

  Well, future probes may well have better data bandwidth than what you are used to. I don't see uncertainty about what a camera would see as good reason to assume a camera isn't desirable.

this may be apocrophal but I recall in my USGS days hearing talk about a debate on whether the Pioneer F abd G spacecraft should have any imaging capability at all, after all, what could possibly be interesting about cloud tops? As it was the imaging Photopolerimeter was a cheap crappy substitute for a camera which was better than nothing, but outclassed by the real cameras the Voyagerws later carried.
  Don

In itself, uncertainty about what the camera would see is not a reason to scratch it from the payload list, but when mass is also an issue, we'd have to opt for an instrument that definitely has a point over one that merely might.

We can say with certainty that some images in a jovian descent would occur inside clouds and therefore be blank. Others would almost certainly have to look like Earthly cloud formations (as jovian clouds do from orbit) -- sometimes showing structure, sometimes just a blank wall. Indeed, I can imagine we would learn something from an image snapped at the right place and time, but flying through terrestrial clouds shows us how time/location-varying that will be, information-wise.

Bandwidth ought to follow Moore's Law, and with Galileo designed 30 years prior to any followup, we can expect the bandwidth issue to go away, but not the mass issue. Given that, the middling probability of getting *any* result is pertinent. I look at expected value, and a middling probability of something useful loses to a sure probability of something else useful.

Simply put, a camera is going to add to the cost of an entry probe, so we have to see how the expected science gain would fare as a function of cost. I'd love to see the pictures -- believe me, I enhanced one of those simulated images to make it look more realistic and made it my wallpaper -- but it's going to be a while before that wins out as a priority.

I wish they had tried something like the following with the Galileo *orbiter*: create a mode of turning off all safe modes; design a super close flyby of the cloud tops on a *penultimate* pass of Jupiter; transmit the resulting image(s) to Earth before the final plunge. If this failed (and I could well imagine that it would), at least we tried.