This is what an artist thinks Galileo looked like when it was near Jupiter. The part on the right orbited Jupiter. The piece on the left went into Jupiter's atmosphere. Image courtesty NASA/JPL.

Galileo was a spacecraft that orbited Jupiter for eight years. It made many discoveries about Jupiter and its moons.

Galileo was launched in 1989, and reached Jupiter in 1995. The spacecraft had two parts. One part went into orbit around Jupiter. The other part went into Jupiter's atmosphere using a parachute.

Jupiter has many small moons and four large moons named Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Galileo made many discoveries about the large moons and sent back many nice pictures of them. Galileo also helped scientists figure out how Jupiter's rings are formed.

The mission of Galileo ended in 2003. The people who controlled Galileo crashed it into Jupiter on purpose! Galileo helped us learn a lot about Jupiter and its moons and rings.