Which precious metal was named after the asteroid Pallas?

Palladium was the precious metal named after the asteroid Pallas. English chemist William Hyde Wollaston chose the name in 1802, shortly after the asteroid had been discovered and was still sometimes described as a planet.

Wollaston identified palladium while processing crude platinum ore from South America. He recorded the new metal in July 1802 and named it in August. The asteroid, formally 2 Pallas, had been discovered in 1802 by Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers. Its name ultimately refers to Pallas, an epithet associated with the Greek goddess Athena.

A common mix-up is to assume that palladium was named directly after the goddess or after a place. The immediate namesake was the asteroid. Palladium also belongs to the platinum-group metals, alongside platinum, rhodium, iridium, osmium, and ruthenium; its symbol is Pd and its atomic number is 46.

Palladium later became especially important in catalysis. It is used in catalytic converters and in chemical reactions that add or remove hydrogen. Its name therefore links an astronomical discovery with a metal that became central to modern chemistry and automotive pollution control.