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1993-05-03
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PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
Contact: James H. Wilson
EMBARGOED: HOLD FOR RELEASE SEPTEMBER 27, 1991
Scientists who studied the planet Venus through data from
the interplanetary spacecraft Galileo have greatly increased
confidence that there are lightning storms in that planet's
atmosphere, according to one of eight scientific articles
published this week on Galileo's Venus observations.
The science team used the spacecraft's plasma wave
instrument to detect electromagnetic equivalents of thunderclaps,
most probably generated by lightning bolts deep in the
atmosphere.
Galileo flew by Venus at a distance of about 10,000 miles in
February 1990. Its pictures and other scientific observations of
that planet were recorded and then transmitted to Earth in
November 1990, according to plan; scientists have been analyzing
the data since then.
In other articles in the series in Science magazine, Galileo
scientists described the upper-atmospheric clouds, lower-level
clouds seen for the first time at high resolution on infrared
images, ultraviolet spectra of atmospheric and space gases, and
other spacecraft instrument data. In other articles, Earth
observatory data collected for comparison at the time of
Galileo's Venus flyby are reported.
Galileo's scientific objective is close and extended
observation of Jupiter, its atmosphere and its moons, beginning
in December 1995. Launched in 1989, it was programmed to fly by
Venus and Earth for gravity assists to help it reach Jupiter. It
flew by Earth in December 1990 and is presently in the Asteroid
Belt on its way to a second and final Earth flyby in December
1992.
The Galileo project is managed for NASA's Office of Space
Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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#1395 9-26-91