Perseus
In Greek mythology, Perseus is a great hero, a demigod and the son of Zeus and Danae. He slays the gorgon Medusa and rescues Andromeda. The tale of Perseus and Medusa was artfully retold by Nathaniel Hawthorne in his story, "The Gorgon's Head."[1]
In astronomy, Perseus is a not-very-conspicuous constellation located near Cassiopeia. The Perseids are an annual meteor shower, peaking on August 12th; the meteors in this shower appear to radiate from a center in Perseus, hence the name.
Perseus was also the code name for a scientist who passed secrets to the communist Soviet Union beginning in 1943 in Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project, before the acknowledged spy Klaus Fuchs arrived, and continuing into the 1950s.[2] The SVR (KGB) Colonel Vladimir Chikov identified the existence of Perseus beginning in 1991 in Russian periodicals, and then in a book in 1996.[3]
References
- ↑ Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1852), A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. The Gorgon's Head, online
- ↑ http://www.lanl.gov/history/wartime/spies.shtml
- ↑ http://home.earthlink.net/~gwkern/books.htm