The abundance of Helium was found to be significantly less than that in the Sun. These results suggest our ideas about the formation and evolution of Jupiter must be revised. The role of local meteorology in producing the dryer atmosphere must also be considered. The Probe apparently entered a rather special location on a quite nonuniform world. An important goal of these observations was to place the Galileo Probe results in the context of Jupiter as a whole.
Initial results indicate the entry site is a quite variable region.
The results imply that the Galileo Probe apparently entered a rather unique location on this highly heterogeneous planet. This uniqueness may account for the many apparent surprises found by the Probe during its descent.