Mythology - Greek - Phaethon

Phaethon was the son of Helios / Sol and the Oceanid, Clymene, and brother to the Heliades, the Sun Nymphs. He was raised in the mortal realm by his mother and, as he entered adolescence, was teased by his friends because his father was absent. In an effort to prove that his father was the sun god, he traveled East and confronted Helios, who claimed him. He convinced his father to let him drive the Sun Chariot, but he could not contain the power of the four fire horses that pulled the chariot across the sky, both letting it go to far out into the sky and creating the Milky Way while freezing the Earth and then getting too close to the Earth and setting it on fire, creating great deserts. Seeing all the destruction, Zeus hit Phaethon with a lightning bolt and he fell out of the chariot to the Earth, dead. Helios, in his grief, set his son among the stars as the constellation: Auriga, "The Charioteer."