Myth & LegendGreek → English
Callisto
/kəˈlɪstoʊ/proper noun
The nymph of Artemis turned into a bear and set among the stars, and the outermost of Jupiter's four large moons.
The Greek roots
κάλλιστος
kállistos
most beautiful
Literally: “most beautiful”
Follow a root:κάλλιστος2 words
The story of the word
Zeus seduced her, a goddess turned her into a bear, and her own son nearly speared her before both were fixed in the sky as the Great and Little Bear. Simon Marius drew his four moon names from Jupiter's love affairs, publishing them in 1614. The moon is the most heavily cratered object yet surveyed, its surface so old it has recorded almost everything that ever hit it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
calligraphykaleidoscopecalisthenics
In a sentence
Callisto sits outside Jupiter's worst radiation belts, which keeps putting it on lists of future landing sites.