DP writes:

Ron Baalke wrote:
...
RELEASE: 03-297
GALILEO TO TASTE JUPITER BEFORE TAKING FINAL PLUNGE
In the end, the Galileo spacecraft will get a taste of Jupiter
before taking a final plunge into the planet's crushing atmosphere,
ending the mission on Sunday, Sept. 21.
...
The spacecraft has been purposely put on a collision course with Jupiter
to eliminate any chance of an unwanted impact between the spacecraft and
Jupiter's moon Europa, which Galileo discovered is likely to have a
subsurface ocean.

At some heights in the Jupiter atmosphere the physical
conditions might be suitable to sustain life.
Since temperature increases inward, at some level it must
traverse the 0-100 C interval in layers where water and organic
molecules must be present, and well shielded from cosmic rays.

Apparently NASA seems to be sure enough that either no life
can exist within Jupiter, or that Galileo will be completely
sterilized before entering such "comfortable" atmospheric layers.

1.) Galileo's impact velocity will be so high it will wiff to plasma.
It is highly unlikely anything living would survive the process ---
or even the very molecules it was formerly made of.

2.) Jupiter's environment is most likely too alien for anything that
evolved on Earth to survive there --- even in the "water zone."

3.) Jupiter has almost certainly already been hit by terrestrial material
ejected by asteroid impacts, just as Earth has been hit by Mars rocks;
hence, if terrestrial microorganisms _can_ survive on Jupiter, they are
probably already there.

Note that all of the above are likewise true of an impact on Europa,
so this whole self-immolation maneuver is almost certainly pointless ---
it is basically just a misguided PR exercise to demonstrate JPL's
"environmental responsibility" to people who are still going to hate
and oppose them as a knee-jerk reflex response, no matter _what_ JPL does.


-- Gordon D. Pusch

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