QUESTION:
Won't the probe burn up before it reaches the atmosphere of Jupiter?

ANSWER from Johnie Driver on January 9, l996: 
No, the probe will not burn up before it reaches the atmosphere 
of Jupiter -- for two reasons. 1) The probe has to reach the 
atmosphere before any heat is generated, 2) The probe is 
protected by a heat shield which keeps most of the heat away from 
the probe itself. However, the probe does "burn up" eventually.
       
It is Jupiter's atmosphere  that causes the probe to heat up. 
As long as the probe is floating through space outside the 
atmosphere, there is nothing acting against it to slow it down 
-- only the gravity pull of Jupiter causing it to speed up. But 
a few hundred kilometers above Jupiter's cloud tops, the 
atmosphere becomes noticeable. The probe speeding along at 47 
km/sec encounters this initially thin atmosphere and it is like 
the wind blowing in your face. It begins to act to slow the 
probe down, gradually converting kinetic energy to heat energy. 
The atmosphere becomes denser as the probe gets closer, 
increasing the rate of energy exchange to a very high level 
which could melt the probe if it were not for the heat shield 
which absorbs the heat instead.
        
After the probe has slowed to the speed of an airplane coming 
in for a landing, a parachute is deployed to allow the probe to 
float down thru the denser atmosphere, enabling measurements to 
be made from an atmospheric pressure  about one tenth that of 
Earth at sea level until about 10 to 20 times that pressure 
where battery power runs out -- about 75 minutes after arrival. 
        
The probe continues to go into the atmosphere, reaching ever increasing 
temperature and pressure until eventually the parachute melts and later 
the probe itself melts after several hours, becoming a part of the other 
elements that make up Jupiter.