In article , Larry G wrote:
Here's a question I've always wondered about. How come no space probe (that
I'm aware of) has taken photos inside Jupiter's (or any of the large
planets') atmosphere? Or at least photos from a very low orbit.

I think this would be fascinating. Is it because the atmospheric
temperature would melt the probe/camera before it reached the low orbit
and/or descent? Are there any known plans to send a probe that could
withstand the extreme temps (or gravity?) to achieve such a feat?

Bear in mind there have only ever been two probes to do anything more
than a flyby of the gas giants, and one of those is still en-route...

Galileo did carry a small probe to be dropped into Jupiter, but a
variety of reasons - the very limited amount of data transmission that
was possible being a major one - meant that equipping it for photography
wasn't a reasonable option. I've seen the decision characterised as
"some interesting science, or two photographs".

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...0spsystems.net
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...0spsystems.net
(& following thread)
for a couple of posts discussing it; there's more, but I don't want to
spend all evening googling g

Cassini also has an entry probe, but this is designed to be dropped onto
Titan - undeniably a more interesting target...

--
-Andrew Gray