The Galileo spacecraft approached Venus February 9, 1990 from the night side and passed across the sunlit hemisphere. Closest approach was about 10 p.m. PST, or about 1 a.m. EST February 10, at a distance of 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) above the cloudtops. For a day before and several days after closest approach Galileo scientists collected measurements of charged particles, dust and magnetism, infrared and ultraviolet spectral observations, data for infrared lower-atmosphere maps, and 81 camera images. Virtually all these data were tape-recorded on the spacecraft and played back in November 1990, because Galileo's communications were constrained during this early phase of flight. The 81 pictures of the upper clouds, the infrared images of lower-level cloud patterns (never observed before), various data on solar wind interactions and other observations make up Galileo's Venus results.
