Phaethon

myth:phaethon

Phaethon, mortal son of the Sun, begged to drive his father's fiery chariot for a day; unable to hold the horses, he scorched the earth and was struck down by Zeus, falling in flames into the river Eridanus, which the Greeks set in the sky as that long star-stream. Some read in his fall the memory of a real fire from the sky — a meteor, a comet. — Greek myth