Crossword-Solution: SODERBLOM 9 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 14

Deputy Imaging Team Leader Larry Soderblom conveyed his excitement through a metaphor that would be repeated many times during the next week: “We’re beginning a stage in this mission which represents, I think, one of the most exciting points in man’s scientific exploration of the solar system—in the next few days, we’ll explore four new worlds,” seeing in a few days’ time what it took us centuries to learn about other worlds in our solar system.

Soderblom will come up and show some beautiful satellite pictures,” Brad Smith announced at the daily press briefing.

But even before the results of that imaging were known, Larry Soderblom was calling Io “one of the most spectacular bodies in the solar system.” As more and more vivid photos of Io appeared on the monitors, members of the Imaging Team in the Blue Room buzzed with excitement.

The image defied description; the Imaging Team used terms like “grotesque,” “diseased,” “gross,” “bizarre.” Smith introduced the picture with the comment, “Io looks better than a lot of pizzas I’ve seen.” Larry Soderblom added, “Well, you may recall [that we] told you yesterday that when we flew by we’d figure all this out.

Each speaker was allotted only a few minutes, prompting Larry Soderblom to preface his remarks by trying to explain how difficult it was to describe four new planets—the Galilean satellites—in the time allowed.