Solar System Myths and Lore

Stories About Names

What Do the Names Mean? The planets in the solar system are named for Greek and Roman gods. Without a telescope or binoculars the planets look like stars wandering across the night sky.

The ancient Romans and Greeks thought they had an effect on the lives of people. Astrologers tracked the planets as they appeared and tried to make predictions about future events. Other civilizations had their own names for the planets.

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Name

Myth and Lore

Sun

Each civilization has its own story of why the sun seems to rise in the East and set in the West while changing the length of the days. In Hawaii they tell of how Maui tied down the sun until it agreed to move slower during part of the year so that Maui's mother could dry out the bark she used for making paper.
The Greeks, Romans and others thought the sun, the Roman god Sol, Helios (HEE lee us) in Greek, was a god on a chariot of fire pulled by four horses. After waking up to the roosters crowing he would ride across the sky until reaching his palace in the west then take a golden ferry boat on the ocean back to his eastern palace.
Even though we know that the Earth's polar tilt relative to the plane of its orbit causes the illusion we still say the sun comes up and goes down. Sun Facts

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