Free Lectures Will Describe NASA's Double-Teaming of Jupiter

Free Lectures Will Describe NASA's Double-Teaming of Jupiter

March 12, 2001

Contact:


Guy Webster/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (818) 354-6278

NASA is taking advantage of having two spacecraft near Jupiter to
examine that planet and its surroundings in ways neither spacecraft could do
alone, and one of the scientists who organized the campaign will describe it
during free public lectures in Pasadena this month.

The lectures will be held on the evenings of March 22 at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory and March 23 at Pasadena City College.

JPL's Dr. Duane Bindschadler, chief of the spacecraft and sequence
team for NASA's Galileo mission, will explain what the Galileo and Cassini
spacecraft have been studying together during the past six months. He will
describe recent findings and lingering questions about Jupiter's colorful
atmosphere, diverse moons, faint rings and powerful magnetic field. The
moons include Io, where mighty volcanoes rapidly repaint the surface, and
Europa, where Galileo has found strong evidence for an ocean of saltwater
under an icy crust.

Galileo is in its sixth year of what was originally planned as a
two-year mission in orbit around Jupiter. It is currently transmitting data
collected during the joint campaign with Cassini. Cassini flew near Jupiter
for a gravitational boost to reach Saturn. It passed closest to Jupiter in
December and took dramatic images of Jupiter's swirling storms and other
jovian wonders.

Before coming to JPL in 1995, Bindschadler taught and conducted
research in geophysics at the University of California, Los Angeles. A
Wyoming native, he earned a bachelor's degree in physics at Washington
University in St. Louis and a doctorate in geology from Brown University in
Providence, R.I. "I enjoy trying to give people a sense of what space
exploration is showing us about the amazing things that go on in the
universe around us," he said.

His lectures, "Galileo Millennium Mission: The Latest Results," will
begin at 7 p.m. Parking and admission are free. Seating is first-come,
first-served. Thursday's lecture at JPL will be in von Karman Auditorium,
4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena. Friday's Pasadena City College lecture will be
in Voslow Forum, 1570 E. Colorado Blvd. More information on the von Karman
lecture series can be obtained at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/lecture or by
calling (818) 354-0112. For directions to JPL, see
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/tours/routes.shtml . JPL is managed for NASA by the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Additional information about the Galileo mission is available at:

http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/

Additional information about Cassini-Huygens is online at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

The Cassini spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at Saturn in July 2004 to
begin a four-year exploration of the ringed planet and its moons. The
Cassini mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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