Mithra is an asteroid of the Apollo-group. Mithra crosses the Earth-orbit as well as the Mars-orbit. Mithra is the asteroid #4486 and according to radar images he’s in a kind forked, so that there are two big bulges are distinguishable. This reminds at the very common shape of contact binaries, which seem to be the standard form of asteroids, although most astronomers still aren’t willing to admit this. Mithra is named after the Persian god Mithra and this is already all, which is noteworthy about this asteroid.

The Persian god Mithra had developed from the Ancient Indian Mitra and then developed further into the Roman Mithras. The name Mitra (मित्र) means treaty as well as friend. This was a friendly god with the task to show the right path to humans, so that there would be peace and friendship. So he had the same task as Astraea. The differences are only that Mitra (मित्र) formed a religious triad together with Varuna (वरुण) and Aryaman (अर्यमन्), the god of hospitality, and that Mitra (मित्र) is male because he’s a solar deity. The Sun is the eye, that reports all the deeds of the humans to Mitra (मित्र). The Persian Mithra was then the god of treaties, of justice, of the right path, of light, and of the Sun. Hardly anything is known about the Roman Mithras, although his cult had at least as many followers as Jesus Christ had. The Roman Mithras was a kind of messiah, who has resurrected from the dead and was sent by his father into the world in order to save the world. But it was prohibited to Mithras’ followers to speak or write about the cult. Although the Romans had a different god, who was the god of the Sun, the Romans gave Mithras the epithet Sol Invictus, which means the undefeated Sun or the invincible Sun.

So only one thing is really sure about Mithra. This is the name of a god, who developed from a god of the Sun and more important fields over a god of the Sun and also other fields into a messiah, who was also a god of the Sun. Hence the Sun is the main constant in the development of Mithra. Hence Mithra is one of those asteroids, that represent certain facets of the Sun.