Close study of Jupiter

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33706, 2 December 1974, Page 17

Close study of Jupiter

<.V 2 P A.-Reuter— Copyright) MOUNTAIN VIEW (California), December 1.

The Jupiter - bound spacecraft Pioneer 11 •will today turn its cameras and instruments towards the giant planet’s moon. Callisto, seen as a possible staging base some day for a close-up manned study.

Pioneer 11, due to run the gauntlet of Jupiter’s fierce radiation .on Monday night, will measure Callisto’s temperature, atmosphere and surface this afternoon.

The spacecraft will streak 26,000 miles above Jupiter’s cloud tops at 6.22 p.m. (New Zealand time, Tuesday) at the previously unheard of speed for a man-made vehicle of 107,000 miles an hour.

Scientists at Ames Research Centre, which is handling the mission, described Callisto as the best

prospect for a manned landing. The Moon, one of a group of three, is outside Jupiter’s radiation belts part of the time but moves back into them for a while every 10 hours. Callisto, 1,125,000 miles from Jupiter, is about the size of Earth’s Moon.

Besides taking colour pictures of the moon, Pioneer 11 will today begin its closeup series of the giant planet itself, starting with the south polar region and moving up to the North Pole.

Neither region was photographed by the spacecraft’s predecessor, Pioneer 10, a year ago. As it moves through the equatorial region, Pioneer 11 will meet huge blasts of radiation which scientists fear may destroy some of its delicate’ instruments, if not the entire spacecraft.

Pioneer 11 will then take advantage of Jupiter’s force of gravity to hurl itself on a path that will take it past the next solar planet, Saturn, in five years time.