How did the moon Hippocamp get its name?

The moon is named after the hippocampus, a mythological creature depicted as having the upper body of a horse with the lower body of a fish in Greek mythology. The hippocampus symbolizes the Greek sea god Poseidon as well as the Roman sea god Neptune.

What is Hippocamp moon made of?

Scientists think Hippocamp is likely a chipped-off piece of the larger moon that resulted from a collision with a comet billions of years ago.

What moon is named after the daughter of Aether and Hemera?

Thalassa was named after a daughter of Aether and Hemera from Greek mythology. Thalassa is also the Greek word for sea. The moon was originally designated as S/1989 N 5.

What is smallest moon name?

Smallest. The smallest moon is Deimos, at Mars, only seven miles in diameter, although its size now is rivaled by the small shepherd moons discovered by Cassini at Saturn and by others yet to be counted and named in the rings around Jupiter, Saturn and other giant gas planets in the outer Solar System.

Who discovered Hippocamp?

Mark Showalter
Jack J. Lissauer
Hippocamp/Discoverers

How far is Hippocamp from Earth?

3 billion miles
This composite Hubble Space Telescope picture shows the location of tiny Hippocamp (originally designated S/2004 N 1), a moon orbiting the giant planet Neptune, nearly 3 billion miles from Earth.

Who is Hemera?

In Greek mythology, Hemera (/ˈhɛmərə/; Ancient Greek: Ἡμέρα, romanized: Hēméra, lit. ‘Day’ [hɛːméra]) was the personification of day. According to Hesiod, she was the daughter of Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), and the sister of Aether.

What does Thalassa mean?

the personification of the sea
[ thuh-las-uh ] SHOW IPA. / θəˈlæs ə / PHONETIC RESPELLING. noun Classical Mythology. the personification of the sea.

Is there a planet without a moon?

The answer is no moons at all. That’s right, Venus (and the planet Mercury) are the only two planets that don’t have a single natural moon orbiting them. Figuring out why is one question keeping astronomers busy as they study the Solar System.

How big is Hippocamp moon?

5.5923 miHippocamp / Radius

Who is Nyx and Hemera?

Hemera was one of the primordial deities in Greek mythology, the daughter of the primordial deities Erebus (darkness) and Nyx (night). She was the personification of the day. Her husband was her brother Aether, with whom she gave birth to Thalassa (sea), Uranus (heavens) and Gaia (earth).

What is a hippocampus in Greek mythology?

Taurokampos (fish-tailed bull) Hippocampus springs from Greek and Phoenician mythology, however, its name is purely of Greek provenance as the word hippo in Greek means horse and kampos means sea monster. These mythical creatures are believed to have been created from the crests of sea waves.

What is the hippocampus for?

That suggested that the hippocampus was a sort of device used by the brain for mapping layouts of the environment. Data supporting that idea came from later virtual navigation studies in humans, which suggested a strong association between the hippocampus and spatial navigation.

Where is the hippocampus on a Greek shield?

They appear to the left and right of the shield in the middle. Closely related to the hippocampus is the “sea goat”, represented by Capricorn, a mythical creature with the front half of a goat and the rear half of a fish.

What is another name for the hippocampus?

The hippocampus was then described as pes hippocampi major, with an adjacent bulge in the occipital horn, described as the pes hippocampi minor and later renamed as the calcar avis.