Iridium
A chemical element named after Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow, because its salts produce a striking variety of colours
The Meaning of Iridium
Iridium was discovered in 1803 by the English chemist Smithson Tennant, who named it after Iris, the Greek goddess and personification of the rainbow. Tennant chose the name because iridium's salts displayed a remarkable range of vivid colours, reminiscent of the rainbow that Iris used as her bridge between heaven and earth. In Greek mythology, Iris was the messenger of the gods, particularly of Hera, just as Hermes served Zeus. She travelled between Olympus and earth on the rainbow, carrying divine commands to mortals and messages between the gods. In the Iliad, Iris delivers crucial messages during the Trojan War, and in Virgil's Aeneid, she descends on the rainbow to release Dido's soul from her dying body. The element iridium is one of the rarest and densest elements on Earth, found primarily in meteorites. A thin layer of iridium-rich clay at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary provided key evidence for the asteroid impact theory that explains the extinction of the dinosaurs. The word "iridescent," meaning displaying rainbow-like colours, derives from the same mythological source.
Parents
None recorded
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Fun Fact
A thin layer of the element iridium in the geological record provided the crucial evidence that an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs sixty-six million years ago
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
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