SOLAR SYSTEM

Detailed explanation-1: -Four spacecraft (Pioneer 10 & 11, then Voyager 1 & 2) had previously flown by the Jupiter system, but the Galileo mission was the first to enter orbit around the planet.

Detailed explanation-2: -Voyager 1. Voyager 1 successfully flew by both the Jupiter and Saturn systems before continuing out into the farthest most reaches of our solar system. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to study all four of the solar system’s giant planets at close range.

Detailed explanation-3: -NASA opted to crash the 3, 000-pound spacecraft into Jupiter to eliminate the possibility it could smack into Europa, one of Jupiter’s watery moons, and contaminate it with any microbes on board. Galileo had nearly depleted the onboard store of fuel that NASA used to steer it during its 35 orbits of Jupiter.

Detailed explanation-4: -Voyager 1 launched on Sept. 5, 1977, and flew past Jupiter in March 1979. The spacecraft captured more than 18, 000 images of the gas giant and its moons. Voyager 1’s first pictures of Jupiter beamed back to Earth in April 1978, when the probe was 165 million miles (266 million km) from home.

Detailed explanation-5: -NASA’s Galileo mission was the first spacecraft to fly past an asteroid. It flew past asteroid Gaspara in 1991 and Ida in 1993. NASA’s Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR-Shoemaker) mission studied asteroids Mathilde, and Eros.