05-09-2019, 04:17 AM
The tidal forces working on Callisto are significant, and there should be a liquid water ocean down there somewhere which will be in motion. This energy could be tapped to power a civilisation on this moon; even more energy could be extracted from the oceans and/or rocks of the other Galilean moons, but Callisto has the advantage of being largely outside Jupiter's magnetic field and the charged particles trapped there.
Even though the amount of sunlight falling on these moons is fairly small, the tidal power could make up for this. Of course, ther is no such thing as a free lunch, so extracting tidal power will affect Callisto's orbit- but the amount of energy in the orbits of these moons is so vast that we could extract enough energy to power an Earth-like civilisation for a million years without affecting the orbit of Callisto by more than one part in ten thousand.
Even though the amount of sunlight falling on these moons is fairly small, the tidal power could make up for this. Of course, ther is no such thing as a free lunch, so extracting tidal power will affect Callisto's orbit- but the amount of energy in the orbits of these moons is so vast that we could extract enough energy to power an Earth-like civilisation for a million years without affecting the orbit of Callisto by more than one part in ten thousand.