In 1995, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft sent a probe into Jupiter’s atmosphere that kept transmitting for just 58 minutes as it fell, returning the first direct readings from inside the giant planet before

Key Points:

• On 7 December 1995, NASA’s Galileo probe entered Jupiter’s atmosphere and transmitted data for about 58 minutes, providing the first direct measurements from inside a giant planet’s atmosphere.
• The probe was released by the Galileo spacecraft five months earlier and endured extreme conditions, including deceleration forces over 200 times Earth’s gravity and heat shield temperatures around 16,000°C.
• It measured temperature, pressure, density, chemical composition, cloud structure, energy balance, and electrical activity, revealing unexpected findings such as lower water content and denser, hotter atmospheric regions than predicted.
• Transmission ceased after 58 minutes due to overwhelming pressure and temperature about 180 kilometers below entry, with the probe eventually melting and vaporizing in Jupiter’s deep atmosphere.
• The Galileo probe remains the only human-made object to have entered Jupiter’s atmosphere, and its data continue to be the primary source of direct knowledge about giant planet atmospheres.