About the name ARGO ...
 

ARGO is a common name in greek mythology. It was used to name a city, a dog, a ship etc... In our case we refer to the monster named Argo (sometimes written Argus) Panoptes (all-seeing) described with 100 eyes. Argo was believed to be very strong because he was able to sleep closing only 50 out of his 100 eyes.

The legend tells that Argo was guarding the priestess Io, transformed by Zeus into a heifer because Hera was jealous of his love with her, when Hermes with the sound of his flute induced the monster to fall asleep with all his eyes and killed him.

After Argo's death, the goddess Hera transformed the monster into the tail of a peacock. The graphic representation of Argo Panoptes is quite rare: usually one finds, painted on ancient greek vases, the scene in which Argo, Io, Hermes and sometimes Hera appear all together.

The ARGO-YBJ (Astrophysical Radiation with Ground-based Observatory at YangBaJing) experiment is similar to the mithological Argo Panoptes because it looks at the whole sky with many detectors (eyes) day and night and never falls asleep.