The
Sun
| Helios is the young Greek god of the sun. He is the son of Hyperion
and Theia. By the Oceanid
Perse, he became the father of Aeetes, Circe,
and Pasiphae. His other two daughters are Phaethusa ("radiant") and Lampetia
("shining").
With his golden chariot he rises at dawn from the ocean, rides through the sky, and disappears at sunset back into the ocean in the west. His chariot is pulled by four horses - Pyrois, Eos, Aethon and Phlegon. He sees and knows all, and was called upon by witnesses. By the Oceanid Perse, he became the father of Aeëtes, Circe and Pasiphae. He was represented as a youth with a halo, standing in a chariot. His attributes are the whip and the globe.
The Sun is entirely gaseous. its average density, in excess of that of water, might lead one to expect that liquids of solid portions lie beneath its surface. Instead, however, the gases of its interior are highly compressed but yet are too hot to have been liquified. The central density is 160 times that of water, and the pressure is 250 billion times that on Earth's surface. Yet the material is still technically a gas. The Sun travels around the galaxy together with a multitude of lesser companions bound to it by gravitational forces. |