The Galilean Moons Personified

Earlier today I was binging some of Hank Green's videos and I was watching his video on the Galilean moons, the four large moons of Jupiter that all have incredibly unique characteristics.

They were discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and were the first ever true astronomical discovery, as in the first objects found that aren't visible to the naked eye.

While watching the video I suddenly felt some inspiration, and got some ideas of how I could possibly personify these celestial objects! Which is something I've never really seen before for them in particular. And so I worked for a few hours, experimented a bit, and ended up with some designs that I am fairly happy with!

All of these personifications are completely based on features of the moons themselves, and I wanted to make them as distinct from each other as possible.

Now I will give a quick overview of each of the characters and why they are how they are!

The first Galilean moon is Io, which is one of the most extreme places in the Solar System. It is by far the most volcanic place in the solar system, with constant eruptions and even geysers of frozen sulfur dioxide spewing into space. Because of how active it is it changes appearance constantly, but remains mostly a very sulfuric yellow.

I represented all of this by making her a little bit messy/untidy. Her shirt shows this, however I also imagine her hair to have similar colours, being blonde but with sporadic splotches of oranges, greens, reds.

The second Galilean moon is Europa, which is probably the most famous of the moons despite being the smallest. Europa's surface is completely made of ice, but below that as it gets warmer it is actually made out of liquid water! Additionally the moon is adorned with ridges made from the ice from geological activity happening in the depths, and because of that it's one of the more likely candidates for holding life.

I've always seen Europa as the most secretive moon, and so I gave her a more formal outfit. Additionally I plastered in her ridges on top of her, which you could kinda pass off as veins, but ultimately I just thought looked awesome and wanted to add to her. She's extremely cold and white, representing her icy surface.

The third Galilean moon is Ganymede, which is the largest moon in the Solar System, even larger than the planet Mercury! Similar to Europa it is essentially solid ice. Its most interesting characteristic to me (aside from its size) is that it is the only known moon with an electromagnetic field as it has an iron core! Leading to it being protected from Jupiter's ginormous magnetosphere, but also producing its own Auroras like Earth!

To be honest, Ganymede is probably the one I struggled the most with, since its main characteristic in my mind is its size, however while talking to a friend I settled on emphasizing its most unique attribute of a magnetic field, and so made him a bit robotic!

He has some electronic parts in places, but most notably has an entire mechanical arm (which was by far the hardest thing to draw of anything here lol). Also (although it's not really visible in the drawing) I imagine him having a few glowy bits, representing the Auroras that form.

The final Galilean moon is Callisto, which is the second largest and furthest from Jupiter of the four. Callisto is in some way the most "normal" of the moons, as it doesn't have any geological activity and is made up largely from rocks, however it does have one incredibly interesting characteristic. It is the most cratered object in the Solar System, and due to its lack of atmosphere every single impact it's ever had remains marked on its surface, dating back to billions of years ago.

Like Ganymede, Callisto was a bit hard to create as well, but this time in the actual execution. I knew the craters were her main characteristic, but I had to find a way to make it look not gross on a human. Ultimately, I gave her some beauty marks, but most of the moon was reflected on the outfit.

Instead of being filled with holes or something, I made her outfit something which could theoretically produce holes, as in filled with spikes! She is a bit punk-ish, perhaps from her being rebellious and orbiting much further from the planet than the others.

And that's it! This was an extremely fun project that sort of just came impulsively to me. It was very fun to think of ideas and execute them! And although my drawing skills aren't the best, I still really enjoy making random stuff like this, and I am trying to get into the habit of drawing more often again.

This was a very fun exercise to mix my adoration for both art and astronomy, and I am quite happy with all of them!