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.html . JPL is managed for
NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.