I Fixed It. The Other One Had Wonky Colors And ALSO... It Was Flipped The Wrong Way :’)

Procyon-Vulpecula’s Space and Astronomy Advent Calendar

December 16th

WORLDS OF FIRE AND ICE Original full-sized image link: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/images/JEGIC_520x306.jpg In 1610, Galileo Galilei looked up at Jupiter with the telescope, which had just been invented, and saw that it was surrounded by four moons which orbited around it. This proved that not everything had to orbit the Earth, as Aristotle and the Church had taught for centuries. The four Galilean moons of Jupiter were central to a major change in our understanding of our place in the Universe 400 years ago - and one of them may lead another major revolution in our understanding of our place in the scheme of things, if life is discovered there. Io, the closest of the four moons to Jupiter, is the one that looks like a multicoloured pizza. It’s made of rock and metal, like Earth, and is about the size of our Moon. By all rights it should have frozen solid inside, and cooled to the point where no surface activity was possible. But Jupiter’s intense gravity keeps flexing and stretching Io, heating it up like a squeezed stress ball, and melting its interior to make Io the most volcanically active body in the Solar System. Maps of Io are impossible to make, as the surface features change in a matter of years as they all get paved over by lava and ash! Some volcanoes spew molten silicate rock, like on Earth, while others spew molten sulphur - yes, brimstone. Io really is a lot like the traditional picture of Hell! Ganymede, the third of the four moons, is the largest - and the largest moon in the Solar System. Just bigger than Saturn’s Titan, Ganymede is much bigger than Mercury (but not as massive, as Mercury is made mostly of metal and Ganymede is made of ice and rock.) Ganymede’s icy surface is a mixture of ancient, cratered plains that haven’t been touched for aeons, and recently resurfaced areas that have been folded and faulted and had slushy ice from inside welling up below. Perhaps the gravitational effects of the other moons can occasionally squeeze Ganymede enough to produce a limited amount of heating inside. Ganymede is also the only moon in th Solar System to have an appreciable magnetic field, too… Callisto, the last of the four moons, is the second largest. This ball of ice is dead and cratered, and covered in impact scars. Enormous ringed basins mark its surface, and craters look white where they penetrate the dirty surface and let fresh ice from inside well up. This moon hasn’t seen any major changes besides meteorite impacts for over four billion years - the oldest surface of any planet or moon. Callisto also lies outside the radiation belts of Jupiter, so if humans ever visit the Jovian system, Callisto will be the safest place for us to set up camp. Europa, however, is the most intriguing. Europa is the second of the four major moons from Jupiter and the smallest. It is mostly made of rock, but covered in a thin shell of ice. Jupiter’s tidal heating cracks and flexes the ice, and new ice wells up from below to fill the cracks. Europa shows powerful evidence that something warm is moving beneath the ice - maybe warmer, slushy ice, or maybe an ocean of liquid water? The Galileo probe, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003, examined Europa closely and found evidence that the icy surface was thin - maybe a few hundred metres. But we know that some sort of water must go down deeper than that - a deep, liquid ocean? Europa may contain more liquid water than all the oceans of Earth combined. Clinching evidence for the ocean came in 1998, when the Galileo probe detected changes in Jupiter’s magnetic field when Europa passed through it. This implied an electrically conducting liquid was sloshing about under Europa’s icy plates - like a saltwater ocean. And the dirty, reddish-brown colour of the cracks? That appears to be organic molecules of some sort. With warm water, an energy source, and organic matter in abundance, Europa seems like one of the most likely places in the Solar System to look for life. If that happens, the Galilean moons will again overturn our understanding of our place in the Universe. Image credit: NASA/Galileo For more on the Galilean moons, go to: lasp.colorado.edu/education/outerplanets/moons_galilean.php Or, go look at them yourself! All four Galilean moons are easily visible through binoculars. Go find out where Jupiter is in the sky, and turn your binoculars to it. You’ll almost certainly see a few specks of light on either side of it - those are probably Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

It sounded like a fairytale. Callisto laughed, and its soft tinkle rippled through the echo flowers quietly. Though their giggles quickly subsided, they were left with a broad smile.

“You’ve got to be kidding me! What’d you do to the Queen to make her so mad?” 

They folded their hands neatly, resting them on the flat of their stomach and watched the little gnats buzz about above them. Gaster had a lot more stories than Callisto had excepted; though if they were honest, they weren’t what they’d expected in the first place.

“I have been to France several times actually. When I was, oh, six hundred or so I was constantly traveling. France, Persia, Ireland, Denmark - I could never stay in one place for long. I favoured France most however.”

With fond memories in mind he waved leisurely in the air, tiny insects and specks of light flitting around his paw. “I met a few of their monarchs as well. Some were..more hospitable than others. I was almost beheaded by a Queen once, but fortunately the King managed to convince her to not sentence me to death.” Despite it being more of dire situation the monster simply chuckled, light hearted as ever.

“I was good friends with that King, and his own royal scientist as well. I visited as often as I could and my French wasn’t too insulting by then.”

The echo was warm, welcoming, fatherly. Despite themself, Callisto felt a suddenly sharp stab of loneliness. A hesitant hand reached to touch the bioluminescent bloom, feeling the soft petals. Cupping their hands around the back of the echo flower, Callisto brought it closer to them again, whispering softly into it.

“ ... I ‘ m  s t a r t i n g  m y  o r b i t  a r o u n d  J u p i t e r ...”

The child glanced back over at Gaster as the echo flower whispered back, smiling a little. They doubted he realized the significance of the nickname. He probably didn’t even know what it meant. That didn’t seem to bother them in the slightest. Callisto held their ear a little closer to the flower, trying to hear any fault in the replication of their voice and hearing none. The sound was immaculately clear at first, and as soft as the echo flower’s petals.

Little Moon? How curious.

The minuscule detail was noticed in the back of Gaster’s mind; he was much more interested in Callisto’s behavior.

In the Underground there weren’t many children. Few as they were, he saw even less with his job occupation. Regulation of the Core and certain experiments weren’t suitable for most children, and as much as Gaster loved science (with all his heart, really) he sometimes felt a pang in his soul at that. Children were so full of youth and life, so new to the world they lived in. Everything was magical to them.

Observing Callisto, he noted how they were in awe of the sotto voce imitations. The monster and human were illuminated a ethereal blue - the echo flowers also mimicked the infinitely distant starlight and comets in the high above galaxy, even further away beneath Mt. Ebott. It was beautiful. It was harmonious.

Gaster smiled.

“… L i t t l e  M o o n , L i t t l e  M o o n , h o w  d o  y o u  d o … ?”

                                           Strike me down?                                            I’ll get up again.                                                                             I am not invincible,                                                                             but I won’t give up either.

what a nerd

i’ve got some great ideas for this blog & i’m very excited

Callisto /kəˈlɪstoʊ/ is the second-largest moon of Jupiter, after Ganymede. It is the third-largest moon in the Solar System and the largest object in the Solar System not to be properly differentiated.

i'm making a permanent starter call (mutuals only) because i'm an anxious little shit and it's hard knowing who i can just throw threads at

WHEN YOU REALIZE THAT YOUR ART WAS FFLIPPED THE WRONG WAY WHEN U LINED IT AND NOW ITS FUCKED UP AND YOU HAVE TO REDO IT

//Tick Tock

send “tick tock” for a random thought without context: accepting

If I built a banana boat, would it float?