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There have been several missions to explore Jupiter, its moons
and surrounding bodies. Among these are the following:
| Pioneer II | 1973 |
| Voyager I | 1977 |
| Voyager II | 1977 |
| Galileo | 1989 |
Of these missions none has been more important or revealing than the Galileo mission. Galileo was sent to space in 1989 and reached Jupiter in December of 1995. Since then, Galileo has been sending back crucial information and images of Jupiter. Galileo has studied Jupiter's atmosphere as well as its satellites.
After reaching Jupiter, Galileo deployed a small probe into
Jupiter's atmosphere. The deployment was successful in that lots of
new information about Jupiter's atmosphere was discovered.
In July of 1994, a fragmented comet, named Shoemaker-Levy, collided
with Jupiter on its night side. This collision was the largest ever
witnessed in the solar system. Galileo was the only craft in
position to take pictures of this momentous event. The following is
a series of pictures (over a 7 second span) taken by Galileo of the
collision. In the picture a small spot can be seen brightening and
then fading as it approaches Jupiter. That spot is the Shoemaker-Levy
comet.