Krios

Authors: Susanne M Hoffmann, Doris Vickers

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Krios is one of the twelve Titans from Greek mythology. The name is in SIMBAD for HD 240429 (V=9.7 mag).

Concordance, Etymology, History

Semyeong Oh+ 2018 2018ApJ...854..138O, w/Kronos

"Throughout the article, we nickname the two stars Kronos (HD 240430) and Krios (HD 240429). In Greek mythology, Kronos and Krios were sons of the gods Uranos and Gaia. Kronos notoriously devoured all of his children (except for Zeus) to prevent a prophecy from coming true, which predicted that he would be overthrown by them one day."

"Krios and Kronos were identified as a candidate comoving star pair in our recent search for comoving stars using the proper motions and parallaxes from the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution catalog (TGAS), a component of Gaia DR1. We refer the readers to this previous work (Oh et al. 2017) for a full explanation of the method behind this search...."

Miquelarena et al 2024 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024A%26A...688A..73M/abstract speak of "the benchmark pair Krios and Kronos".

While the Ancient Greek word krios (κριός) literally translates to "ram", the Titan’s specific chthonic status defined by his imprisonment in the depths of the underworld means that a classical association between the deity and Aries, the ram of the zodiac, is not typically made in traditional mythology. Despite this lack of a formal mythological link, the linguistic connection remains a point of interest for scholars of the ancient calendar. During the era of Ancient Greece, the constellation of Aries held immense significance as the first visible constellation in the sky during the spring season. This celestial event served as the vital marker for the vernal equinox, signaling the start of the new year in the ancient Greek calendar and the transition into a new cycle of growth.

Mythology

In Greek mythology, Krios (also known as Kreios or Latinised Crius; Ancient Greek: Κρεῖος or Κριός) was one of the twelve primordial Titans, the monumental offspring of Uranus (the personification of the Sky) and Gaia (the personification of the Earth).

Though often joined to the collective myths primarily to fill out the lists of Titans and match the numerical total of the Twelve Olympians, Krios was nonetheless inexorably involved in the grueling, ten-year Titanomachy. This epochal war, waged between the insurgent Olympian gods and the established Titans, saw Krios fighting alongside his brethren, though the surviving myths do not assign him a specific individual role or legendary feat during the combat.

IAU Working Group on Star Names

The name has been in SIMBAD for long time and was approved by the IAU WGSN in 202x. As this star is already named ..., the WGSN chose ... (not to apply/ to apply the name to a neighbouring star/ to ...) in the IAU-CSN.

Reference

• References (general)
• References (early modern)
• Ian Ridpath's website (Star Tales )