Hidden History: 
Ganymede, Moon of Jupiter

by Kate Doolan

    Sources:
  • Reta Beebe, "Jupiter: The Giant Planet",

    • Smithsonian Press, 1997.
  • John Boswell, "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality", University of Chicago Press,  1980.
  • http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo
    		•
    Ganymede has a diameter of 5260 km and is comprised of ice and rock. Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury and is the largest moon in the solar system.  Its surface is heavily cratered with icy plains.  The Galileo spacecraft has made close flybys of Ganymede since its arrival at Jupiter in December 1995.

    Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter (generally referred to as the Galilean moons) and he named them after four lovers of the Roman god, Jupiter: Io, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. Ganymede was male while the other three were women.

    According to the ancient Greeks, Ganymede was a young Trojan  who pleased the king of the gods, Zeus, with his beauty.  Homer called Ganymede, "the most beautiful of mortal men".

    Ganymede was brought to Mount Olympus, where he became cup bearer and lover to the bisexual Zeus.  The tradition, according to Boswell: "Zeus came as an eagle to a god-like Ganymede, as a swan came he to the fair-haired mother of Helen.  So there was no comparison between the two things; one person likes one, another likes the other; I like both."

    Zeus was known as Jupiter to the Romans.
     

    (NASA photos)