elara

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In Greek mythology, Elara was a mortal princess, the daughter of King Orchomenus and mother of the giant Tityos by Zeus.

Zeus fell in love with Elara and hid her from his wife Hera's jealousy by placing her deep beneath the Earth.
This was where she gave birth to Tityos, a giant who is sometimes said to be the son of Gaia, the Earth goddess, for this reason.
It is further added that Elara died in labour because of the enormous size of her baby.
The cave through which Tityos was believed to have come to the surface of Earth was located on Euboea and referred to as Elarion.

In Astronomy, Elara is a moon of Jupiter.

Elara is the eighth largest moon of Jupiter. With a mean radius of 43 km (assuming an albedo of 0.04), it's only about 2% the size of Europa, the smallest of the four Galilean moons.
But it's about half as big as Himalia, which makes it second biggest in the Himalia group, a family of Jovian satellites which have similar orbits and appearance, and are therefore thought to have a common origin.

elara moon of Jupiter

Elara may be a chunk of an asteroid (a C- or D-class asteroid, judging by the fact that it reflects only about 4% of the light it receives), which was broken apart in a collision either before or after being captured by Jupiter's gravity.
In this scenario, the other pieces became the other moons in the Himalia group: Leda, Himalia (the largest) and Lysithea. A fifth moon, called S/2000 J11, only about 2 km in radius, was considered a candidate for this group.
However, it was lost before its orbit could be definitively determined. It may have crashed into Himalia, reuniting two pieces of the former asteroid, and perhaps creating a faint temporary ring of Jupiter near the orbit of Himalia.

At a distance of about 11.7 million km from Jupiter, Elara takes nearly 260 Earth days to complete one orbit.

Discovery:
Elara was discovered on 5 January 1905 by Charles Dillon Perrine in photographs taken with the Crossley 36-inch (0.9 meter) reflector of the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton at the University of California, San Jose.

How Elara got its name:
Elara is named for one of the lovers of Zeus, the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter. In Greek mythology, Zeus hid her from his wife, Hera, by placing Elara deep beneath the Earth, where she gave birth to their son, a giant called Tityas.

A name ending in "a" was chosen for this moon in keeping with the International Astronomical Union's policy for designating Jupiter's outer moons which have prograde orbits (orbiting in the same direction as Jupiter's rotation).