GALILEO

19" x 12". Original acrylic painting on illustration board. Circa 1989.

Painting of Galileo just before orbital insertion. Published in Astronomy Magazine just prior to the launch in 1989 (and before the antenna jammed!). Also displayed in NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab for several years.

From the NASA press release: While its aim was to study Jupiter and its mysterious moons, which it did with much success, NASA's Galileo mission also became notable for discoveries during it journey to the gas giant. It was the first spacecraft to visit an asteroid - two, in fact, Gaspra and Ida. Galileo provided the only direct observations of a comet colliding with a planet. Its flight past Venus in 1990 yielded fascinating infrared images of the planet's clouds. After discoveries, including evidence of the existence of a saltwater ocean beneath the Jovian moon, Europa's icy surface, extensive volcanic processes on the moon Io, and a magnetic field generated by the moon Ganymede, Galileo plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere on September 21,2003 to prevent an unwanted impact on Europa.