[quote=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluffy_%28Harry_Potter%29#Fluffy"]
[float=right][img3="[b][color=#0000FF]'[i]Fluffy[/i]' guarding the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.[/color][/b]"]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/KTH_Kerberos.jpg/800px-KTH_Kerberos.jpg[/img3][/float]
<<Fluffy is a giant three-headed dog provided by Hagrid to guard the trapdoor leading to the underground chamber where the Philosopher's Stone was hidden. The only known way to get past Fluffy is to lull him to sleep by playing music. Fluffy is based on Cerberus, the three-headed dog from Greek Mythology that guards the gates to the underworld. In Philosopher's Stone, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville accidentally run into Fluffy whilst hiding from Peeves, who was attempting to give them away to caretaker Argus Filch, who was searching for them. On Halloween, Harry and Ron witness Snape entering the door to Fluffy's chamber, and for the next few days having a pronounced limp. Harry also overhears him saying "How are you meant to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?" to Filch. However, it is later revealed that he followed then Hogwarts Defence Against the Dark Arts professor Quirinus Quirrell into the chamber. While Fluffy is guarding the Philosopher's Stone, Professor Quirrell penetrates Fluffy's defences by playing a harp, in order to access the trapdoor, while Harry uses a flute that had been given to him by Hagrid. As with Fluffy, Cerberus was lulled to sleep with music by Orpheus. Rowling was asked in an interview what happened to Fluffy after he was no longer needed to protect the Stone. Her reply was that Fluffy was released into the Forbidden Forest.>>[/quote]
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[quote=" http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/23/what-should-name-plutos-new-moon/"]
What Should We Name Pluto's New Moon?
Fox News July 23, 2011
<<A fourth moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto has just been discovered. The tiny satellite — it's a mere 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km) across — showed up as a faint dot on new, long-exposure photos of the Pluto system taken by NASA's Hubble Telescope.
But enough with the technical details: What will we call the newest member of the solar community?
"It's called P4 for the time being," said Trent Perrotto, public affairs officer at NASA headquarters. "It'll get a name, but it's not up to NASA to decide on it." As usual with newly discovered astronomical objects, he explained, P4's name will be subject to a tough selection process overseen by an organization called the International Astronomical Union.
In an unofficial Facebook poll of SPACE.com readers, the top choice is "Mickey." Unfortunately for them, though, this won't satisfy the IAU's official naming conventions. According to the IAU guidelines, "Objects crossing or approaching the orbit of Neptune … notably [Pluto and its moons], are given mythological names associated with the underworld."
Pluto was the god of the underworld in Roman mythology. Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is named after the ferryman who carried the souls of the newly deceased across the River Styx, which divided the world of the living from that of the dead. Nix, Pluto's second moon, was the Greek goddess of darkness and night, and Charon's mother. Hydra, the third, was a many-headed serpent that guarded a back entrance to the underworld located deep below the surface of a lake.
In choosing a name along these hellish lines for P4, the IAU nomenclature committee will try to honor the wishes of its discoverer: planetary astronomer Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in California. What's his choice? "This is a topic under discussion," Showalter told Life's Little Mysteries. "We have a lot of colorful names to choose from because all the moon names come from, essentially, the minions of Hades. One name that seems to come up most is Cerberus, the dog who guards the gates to hell." Three-headed Cerberus is Hydra's sibling.
"Cerberus: How could you go wrong with a name like that?" Showalter said. "But, unfortunately, Cerberus is already the name of an asteroid. The IAU balks at the idea of using asteroid names, although it's not necessarily out of the question. Even then, Kerberos, [the spelling that] is closer to the original Greek, would be OK even if Cerberus is not. I don't want to say that's the name we've chosen. There are a lot of interesting names being discussed."
Showalter and his discovery team will submit their top choices to the IAU soon, and he thinks they'll choose a name within two months. Perhaps Cerberus/Kerberos will soon be guarding the Kuiper Belt.>>[/quote]
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[quote=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerberus"]
[float=right][img3="[b][color=#0000FF]Cerberus held in the grasp of Hercules, as shown on the Firmamentum Sobiescianum star atlas of Johannes Hevelius (1687). Cerberus is sometimes substituted for the "branch from the tree of the golden apples" fetched by Atlas from the garden of the Hesperides. This branch is the literary source of
the "golden bough" in the Aeneid by Virgil.[/color][/b]
Image © Tartu Observatory Virtual Museum."]http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/image/Heveliuscerberus.JPG[/img3][/float]
<<Cerberus, or Kerberos, (Greek: Κέρβερος) is a multi-headed hound which guards the gates of The Underworld, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping. Cerberus featured in many works of ancient Greek and Roman literature and in works of both ancient and modern art and architecture, although, the depiction and background surrounding Cerberus often differed across various works by different authors of the era. The most notable difference is the number of its heads: Most sources describe or depict three heads; others show it with two or even just one; a smaller number of sources show a variable number, sometimes as many as 50.
"Cerberus" is generally pronounced in English with a soft C as in cell, even though the ancient pronunciation, in both Greek and Latin was with a hard C as in cat. The name may be related to the Sanskrit word सर्वरा "sarvarā", used as an epithet of one of the dogs of Yama, from a Proto-Indo-European word *ḱerberos, meaning "spotted." Certain experts believe that the monster was inspired by the golden jackal.
Cerberus is said to be the sibling of the Lernaean Hydra, the Nemean Lion, the Sphinx, the Ladon, and the Chimera. Cerberus was the offspring of Echidna, a hybrid half-woman and half-serpent, and Typhon, a fire-breathing giant whom even the Olympian gods feared. Its brother is Orthrus, always depicted as a two-headed hellhound. The common depiction of Cerberus in Greek mythology and art is as having three heads, a mane of live serpents (similar to Medusa's hair) and a snake's tail. In most works the three-heads each respectively see and represent the past, the present, and the future, while other sources suggest the heads represent birth, youth, and old age. Each of Cerberus' heads is said to have an appetite only for live meat and thus allow the spirits of the dead to freely enter the underworld, but allow none to leave. Cerberus was always employed as Hades' loyal watchdog, and guarded the gates that granted access and exit to the underworld (also called Hades).
Capturing Cerberus alive, without using weapons, was the final labour assigned to Heracles (Hercules) by King Eurystheus, in recompense for the killing of his own children by Megara after he was driven insane by Hera, and therefore was the most dangerous and difficult. In the traditional version, Heracles would not have been required to capture Cerberus, however Eurystheus discounted the completion of two of the tasks as Heracles had received assistance.
After having been given the task, Heracles went to Eleusis to be initiated in the Eleusinian Mysteries so that he could learn how to enter and exit the underworld alive, and in passing absolve himself for killing centaurs. He found the entrance to the underworld at Tanaerum, and Athena and Hermes helped him to traverse the entrance in each direction. He passed Charon with Hestia's assistance and his own heavy and fierce frowning.
Whilst in the underworld, Heracles met Theseus and Pirithous. The two companions had been imprisoned by Hades for attempting to kidnap Persephone. One tradition tells of snakes coiling around their legs then turning into stone; another that Hades feigned hospitality and prepared a feast inviting them to sit. They unknowingly sat in chairs of forgetfulness and were permanently ensnared. When Heracles had pulled Theseus first from his chair, some of his thigh stuck to it (this explains the supposedly lean thighs of Athenians), but the earth shook at the attempt to liberate Pirithous, whose desire to have the wife of a god for himself was so insulting he was doomed to stay behind.
Heracles found Hades and asked permission to bring Cerberus to the surface, which Hades agreed to if Heracles could overpower the beast without using weapons. Heracles was able to overpower Cerberus and proceeded to sling the beast over his back, dragging it out of the underworld through a cavern entrance in the Peloponnese and bringing it to Eurystheus. The king was so frightened of the beast that he jumped into a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithos]pithos[/url], and asked Heracles to return it to the underworld in return for releasing him from his labors.
Cerberus featured in many prominent works of Greek and Roman literature, most famously in Virgil's Aeneid, Peisandros of Rhodes' epic poem the Labours of Hercules, the story of Orpheus in Plato's Symposium, and in Homer's Iliad, which is the only known reference to one of Heracles' labours which first appeared in a literary source. Most occurrences in ancient literature revolve around the basis of the threat of Cerberus being overcome to allow a living being access to the underworld; in the Aeneid Cerberus was lulled to sleep after being tricked into eating drugged honeycakes and Orpheus put the creature to sleep with his music. In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Canto VI, the "great worm" Cerberus is found in the Third Circle of Hell, where he oversees and rends to pieces those who have succumbed to gluttony, one of Roman Catholicism's seven deadly sins. In Paradise Lost11.65, Cerberean hounds are mentioned in Hell: "A cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing bark'd With wide Cerberean mouths full loud".>>[/quote]
Orthrus Neuendorffer