 The first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter was the Galileo <unk> , which went into orbit around Jupiter on December 7 , 1995 . It orbited the planet for over seven years , making 35 orbits before it was destroyed during a controlled impact with Jupiter on September 21 , 2003 . During this period , it gathered a large amount of information about the Jovian system ; the amount of information was not as great as intended because the deployment of its high @-@ gain radio transmitting antenna failed . The major events during the eight @-@ year study included multiple flybys of all of the Galilean moons , as well as Amalthea ( the first probe to do so ) . It also witnessed the impact of Comet Shoemaker – Levy 9 as it approached Jupiter in 1994 and the sending of an atmospheric probe into the Jovian atmosphere in December 1995 . 
