Recently in this 'What Is' series I've written about two of Jupiter's four large moons: Europa and Io. These are the four large moons, four of the largest moons in the Solar System, that Galileo discovered when he first observed Jupiter with a telescope. Thus they are called the four Galilean moons. Since I've talked about two of them already, I might as well talk about the other two: Callisto and Ganymede. Let's start with Callisto.
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| Chain of craters on Callisto - NASA [Public domain] |
Callisto is much different from Io (very volcanic) and Europa (very icy with a liquid ocean underneath the surface). Callisto has no volcanoes. Callisto has a lot of ice, evidenced by the bright spots we see in craters. There is the possibility of a liquid ocean underneath the surface, but it doesn't get the same interest as Europa on this matter. Callisto looks more like our Moon, with a grayish surface pot-marked by craters.
Callisto is the third largest moon in the Solar System and second largest orbiting Jupiter. Only Ganymede (Jupiter) and Titan (Saturn) are larger moons.
Callisto fits in a weird spot in most mentioned moons. There is the possibility of life if there is liquid water and it could be an ideal place for possible habitation in the future. Yet Callisto doesn't get talked about nearly to the same level as Europa and Io and it's not the largest moon. It's large, but third place just doesn't cut it. Poor Callisto. :-)
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