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Chiron

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Chiron

Unusual object orbiting between Saturn and Uranus, discovered in 1977 by US astronomer Charles Kowal. Initially classified as an asteroid, it has now been given both an asteroid designation (2060 Chiron) and a comet designation (95P/Chiron). It is 130,140 km/8,087 mi across, composed of ice with a dark crust of carbon dust. It has a 51-year orbit and a coma (cloud of gas and dust) caused by evaporation from its surface, resembling that of a comet. It is classified as a centaur.

Chiron

In Greek mythology, a wise centaur (half man, half horse), son of the Titan Kronos by the sea nymph Philyra. He was the tutor of the heroes Jason and Achilles, and the god of medicine Asclepius.

Chiron was instructed by Apollo and Artemis in hunting, medicine, music, gymnastics, and prophecy.

After Heracles accidently wounded him with a poisoned arrow, he pleaded to be relinquished from his immortal state, and Zeus transformed him into the constellation Sagittarius.



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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
The good Chiron taught his pupils how to play upon the harp, and how to cure diseases, and how to use the sword and shield, together with various other branches of education, in which the lads of those days used to be instructed, instead of writing and arithmetic.
Tanglewood Tales by Hawthorne, Nathaniel View in context
The "Precepts of Chiron" was a didactic poem made up of moral and practical precepts, resembling the gnomic sections of the "Works and Days", addressed by the Centaur Chiron to his pupil Achilles.
Collection Of Hesiod, Homer and Homerica by Homer View in context
This has been figuratively taught to princes by ancient writers, who describe how Achilles and many other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to nurse, who brought them up in his discipline; which means solely that, as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other is not durable.
The Prince by Machiavelli, Nicolo View in context
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