On Sunday, September 21,2003, NASA crashed the Galileo spacecraft into Jupiter’s thick atmosphere. The $1.5 billion craft was launched in 1989 on a mission to study Jupiter and it’s large Galilean satellites. Galileo has returned 14,000 images of the giant gas planet and its moons. Some of the most spectacular images were Io’s volcanoes spewing lava and plumes of dust and gas. Galileo discovered the first moon of an asteroid while passing through the Asteroid Belt on its way to Jupiter. Galileo witnessed the impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy into Jupiter’s dense clouds. It also provided evidence of salty oceans on three of the planet’s moons. Information supplied by this mission led scientists to believe Europa as the most likely place to harbor life forms.

NASA decided to crash the spacecraft into the planet traveling at a speed over 108,000 miles per hour. The heat generated from the spacecraft falling through the atmosphere tore it apart and then vaporized the 3,000-pound craft along with any microbes on board. Galileo was one of the few spacecraft that wasn’t sterilized inside and out before its launch. NASA was concerned with Galileo crashing into Europa and possibly infecting the moon with Earth-based microbes. If Europa has any life developing, Earth bacteria could contaminate it.