Herse

Herse (Ancient Greek: Ἕρση "dew") is a figure in Greek mythology, daughter of Cecrops, sister to Aglauros and Pandrosos.

According to the Bibliotheca, when Hephaestus unsuccessfully attempted to rape Athena, she wiped his semen off her leg with wool and threw it on the ground, impregnating Gaia. Athena wished to make the resulting infant Erichthonius immortal and to raise it, so she gave it to three sisters, Herse, Aglauros and Pandrosos, in a willow basket and warned them to never open it. Aglauros and Herse disobeyed her and opened the basket which contained the infant and future king, Erichthonius, who was somehow mixed or intertwined with a snake. The sight caused Herse and Aglauros to go insane and they jumped to their deaths off the Acropolis. Shrines were constructed for Herse and Aglauros on the Acropolis.

An alternative version of the story is that, while Athena was gone bringing a mountain from Pallena to use in the Acropolis, the sisters, minus Pandrosos again, opened the box with Erichthonius inside. A crow witnessed the opening and flew away to tell Athena, who fell into a rage and dropped the mountain (now Mt. Lykabettos). Once again, Herse and Aglauros went insane and threw themselves to their deaths off the cliffs of the Acropolis. This story supposedly inspired an ancient ritual in Athens: "The Festival of the Dew Carriers" or Arrhephoria.

Herse (moon)

Herse (/ˈhɜːrsiː/ HUR-see; Greek: Ἕρση), or Jupiter L, previously known by its provisional designation of S/2003 J 17, is a natural satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered on 8 February 2003 by the astronomers Brett J. Gladman, John J. Kavelaars, Jean-Marc Petit, and Lynne Allen. It was named after Herse 'dew', a daughter of Zeus and Selene the moon in Greek mythology, on 11 November 2009.

Herse is about 2 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 22.134 gigametre (Gm) in 672.752 days, at a mean inclination of 165° to the ecliptic, in a retrograde direction and with a mean eccentricity of 0.2493.

It is the innermost member of the Carme group, made up of irregular retrograde moons orbiting Jupiter at a distance ranging between 23 and 24 Gm and at an inclination of about 165°.

References