Discovery and Naming
Metis was discovered by Andrew Graham on 25 April 1848, at Markree Observatory in Ireland; it was his only asteroid discovery. It also has been the only asteroid to have been discovered as a result of observations from Ireland until 7 October 2008, when, 160 years later, Dave McDonald from observatory J65 discovered 2008 TM9. Its name comes from the mythological Metis, a Titaness and Oceanid, daughter of Tethys and Oceanus. The name Thetis was also considered and rejected (it would later devolve to 17 Thetis).
Read more about this topic: 9 Metis
Famous quotes containing the words discovery and/or naming:
“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The night is itself sleep
And what goes on in it, the naming of the wind,
Our notes to each other, always repeated, always the same.”
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