Air Date: November 30, 2009

Adam Fuller

When Galileo fell into Jupiter

In December 1995, NASA’s unmanned spacecraft, Galileo, dropped a probe into Jupiter’s atmosphere and provided us with the first in situ observations of an outer planet’s atmosphere. Getting the probe into an atmosphere with six times Earth’s gravity and twenty times Earth’s atmospheric pressure was extremely difficult. Having the probe enter in a scientifically interesting location even more so. In this podcast we’ll discuss how NASA dealt with these issues as well as what we learned from the Galileo probe and orbiter.

Adam Fuller is currently a graduate student at the University of Unknown. He graduated from Columbia University with a B.S. in Astrophysics in 2009. He also has a B.A. in Journalism from North Carolina (Go Heels!). His research interests include planetary science, meteorology, and astrobiology. Outside of school, he is an avid marathoner, a failed comedian, and a dedicated uncle to three proto-astrophysicists.