Stheno with her sister Medusa, who was raped by the sea god Poseidon in the Temple of Athena. Athena, bearing no emotion and finding no fault in Poseidon, was furious with Medusa. As a punishment, Medusa was changed into a terrible monster, along with her sisters Stheno and Euryale. Stheno tends to be depicted as a thin gorgon monster with red snakes curling around her head instead of hair. Earlier accounts, however, describe her as having a scaly head, a boar's tusks, bronzed hands, a protruding tongue, glaring eyes and a snake around the waist as a belt. When the Gorgon
Medusa Nebula Medusa Nebula The Medusa Nebula is a large planetary nebula in the constellation of Gemini on the Canis Minor border. It is also known as Abell 21 and Sharpless 2-274. It was originally discovered in 1955 by UCLA astronomer George O. Abell, who classified it as an old planetary nebula. The braided serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggests the serpent hair of Medusa found in ancient Greek mythology. Until the early 1970s, the Medusa was thought to be a supernova remnant. With the computation of expansion velocities and the thermal character of the radio emission, Soviet astronomers in 1971 concluded