Hera Milk Sprays Milky Way

Greek mythology says the Milky Way formed when Hera yanked the infant Heracles away while he was breastfeeding, and her spurting milk flew across the sky to become a bright band of stars. In one version of the story, Zeus had placed Heracles at Hera’s breast so that the child would gain divine strength from nursing on the queen of the gods. When Hera realized she was feeding a child who was not fully her own, she tore him away in anger, and the spray of divine milk left its glowing mark across the heavens as the Milky Way.

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