The Galileo Cliffs () are a line of east–west cliffs, long, standing between Grotto Glacier and

Jupiter Glacier Jupiter Glacier () is a glacier on the east coast of Alexander Island, Antarctica, long and wide at its mouth, which flows east into George VI Sound to the south of Ablation Valley. It was first photographed from the air on November 23, 1935, ...

, west of

Ablation Point Ablation Point, also known as Punta Ablación, is the eastern extremity of a hook-shaped rock ridge marking the north side of the entrance to Ablation Valley, on the east coast of Alexander Island, Antarctica. It was first photographed from the ai ...

, in eastern

Alexander Island Alexander Island, which is also known as Alexander I Island, Alexander I Land, Alexander Land, Alexander I Archipelago, and Zemlja Alexandra I, is the largest island of Antarctica. It lies in the Bellingshausen Sea west of Palmer Land, Antarcti ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

. They were mapped from

trimetrogon Trimetrogon is an aerial photographic survey method that involves the use of three cameras in one assembly. One camera is pointed directly downwards, and the other two are pointed to either side of the flight path at a 30° depression angle (60° ...

air photography taken by the

Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition The Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE) was an expedition from 1947–1948 which researched the area surrounding the head of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. Background Finn Ronne led the RARE which was the final privately sponsored exp ...

, 1947–48, and from survey by the

Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey The Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE) was an aerial survey of the Falkland Islands Dependencies The Falkland Islands Dependencies was the constitutional arrangement from 1843 until 1985 for administering the v ...

, 1948–50. They were named by the

UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) an ...

from association with Jupiter Glacier after

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...

, the Italian

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

who discovered the

Galilean moons The Galilean moons (), or Galilean satellites, are the four largest moons of Jupiter. They are, in descending-size order, Ganymede (moon), Ganymede, Callisto (moon), Callisto, Io (moon), Io, and Europa (moon), Europa. They are the most apparent m ...

, the four named satellites of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

(1564-1642).

References

Cliffs of Alexander Island {{AlexanderIsland-geo-stub

See also

References