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Description

More of my astronomical art can be seen in my DA "Space Art" gallery:
lexlothor.deviantart.com/galle…
Unlike my previous "Exoplanetscapes" this image is four times larger than an art card.

I have depicted Hero, the large moon of a gas giant that orbits outside the habitable zone of a G-type star. Its distance from its parent star is equivalent to that of the Solar System's asteroid belt. This moon is stressed by tidal forces in the manner of Jupiter's inner moon Io. However Hero's internal heat reaches a level at the surface where water is held just below the vapor point 100 degrees Centigrade. I name the moon after the ancient inventor Hero of Alexandria who created steam engines 2000 years before Fulton. Where as Io has lost all of its water and is hot enough to melt sulfur, Hero's surface is pockmarked with fumaroles, geysers and hot springs. Life at the bacterial level is abundant from deep beneath the surface, on the surface and in the atmosphere. The microbes are all extremophiles adapted to very different levels of temperature, PH and chemistry. The rainbow of colors on the rocks and in the water represents microbial colonies in their specialized niches. The sky is reddish due to a reducing atmosphere made largely of carbon dioxide. Hero is low in iron, but high in calcium and sulfur. The moon is constantly being resurfaced by the erosive power of moving water. All of these dripstone features formed in the presence of microbes in the manner of terrestrial stromatolites.

I was inspired to do this picture from visits to the hotspots of Yellowstone and Thermopolis in Wyoming. It took me a year to finish it.
5" x 7" painting rendered in Prismacolor pencil, markers & acrylic paint on plate finish Bristol.
art & text (c) John P. Alexander

Description

More of my astronomical art can be seen in my DA "Space Art" gallery:
lexlothor.deviantart.com/galle…
Unlike my previous "Exoplanetscapes" this image is four times larger than an art card.

I have depicted Hero, the large moon of a gas giant that orbits outside the habitable zone of a G-type star. Its distance from its parent star is equivalent to that of the Solar System's asteroid belt. This moon is stressed by tidal forces in the manner of Jupiter's inner moon Io. However Hero's internal heat reaches a level at the surface where water is held just below the vapor point 100 degrees Centigrade. I name the moon after the ancient inventor Hero of Alexandria who created steam engines 2000 years before Fulton. Where as Io has lost all of its water and is hot enough to melt sulfur, Hero's surface is pockmarked with fumaroles, geysers and hot springs. Life at the bacterial level is abundant from deep beneath the surface, on the surface and in the atmosphere. The microbes are all extremophiles adapted to very different levels of temperature, PH and chemistry. The rainbow of colors on the rocks and in the water represents microbial colonies in their specialized niches. The sky is reddish due to a reducing atmosphere made largely of carbon dioxide. Hero is low in iron, but high in calcium and sulfur. The moon is constantly being resurfaced by the erosive power of moving water. All of these dripstone features formed in the presence of microbes in the manner of terrestrial stromatolites.

I was inspired to do this picture from visits to the hotspots of Yellowstone and Thermopolis in Wyoming. It took me a year to finish it.
5" x 7" painting rendered in Prismacolor pencil, markers & acrylic paint on plate finish Bristol.
art & text (c) John P. Alexander