Moons. Moons of Saturn. Artist's concepts of the Saturnian ring–moon system Saturn, its rings and major icy moons—from Mimas to Rhea Images of several moons of Saturn. From left to right: Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea; Titan in the background; Iapetus (top) and irregularly shaped Hyperion (bottom). Some small moons are also shown. All to scale. The rings of Saturn are made up of objects ranging in size from microscopic to moonlets hundreds of meters across, each in its own orbit about the planet.[7] Thus a precise number of Saturnian moons cannot be given, as there is no objective boundary between the countless small anonymous objects that form Saturn's ring system and the larger objects that have been named as moons.
Discovery and naming[edit] Early observations[edit] Observations by spacecraft[edit] Four moons of Saturn can be seen on this image by the Cassini spacecraft: Huge Titan and Dione at the bottom, small Prometheus (under the rings) and tiny Telesto above center. Outer moons[edit] Naming[edit] Saturn's Moons. Saturn's Moons The dozens of icy moons orbiting Saturn vary drastically in shape, size, surface age and origin. Some of these worlds have hard, rough surfaces, while others are porous bodies coated in a fine blanket of icy particles. All have greater or smaller numbers of craters, and many have ridges and valleys. Some, like Dione and Tethys, show evidence of tectonic activity, where forces from within ripped apart their surfaces. Many, like Rhea and Tethys, appear to have formed billions of years ago, while others, like Janus and Epimetheus, could have originally been part of larger bodies that broke up.
To date, 53 moons have been officially named. Astronomers continue to find new small moons orbiting Saturn, using both ground-based observatories and Cassini's own imaging cameras. For more information on the latest moons discovered visit the Recent Discoveries page and the Icy Satellites publications listing. Diversity of Worlds The moons of Saturn are a diverse collection. Space Science - Saturn and Titan.
Saturn and Titan, side by side Saturn and Titan 5 March 2012 Titan, Saturn’s largest moon at 5150 km across, looks small here, pictured to the right of the gas giant in this infrared image taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Saturn’s rings appear across the top of the image, casting shadows onto the planet across the middle of the image. A much smaller moon, Prometheus, 86 km across, appears as a tiny white speck above the rings in the far upper right of the image. The shadow of another moon, Pandora, 100 km at its widest, can be seen below the ring shadows towards the right side of the planet.
Cassini’s wide-angle camera captured the view on 5 January, while it was about 685 000 km from Saturn. Saturn: Moons. Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, is home to a vast array of intriguing and unique worlds. From the cloud-shrouded surface of Titan to crater-riddled Phoebe, each of Saturn's moons tells another piece of the story surrounding the Saturn system. Christiaan Huygens discovered the first known moon of Saturn. The year was 1655 and the moon was Titan. Giovanni Domenico Cassini made the next four discoveries: Iapetus (1671), Rhea (1672), Dione (1684), and Tethys (1684). Mimas and Enceladus were both discovered by William Herschel in 1789.
The next two discoveries came at intervals of 50 or more years -- Hyperion (1848) and Phoebe (1898). As telescopic resolving power increased through the 19th century, Saturn's family of known moons grew. We've discovered a total of 53 natural satellites orbiting Saturn. Here's a sampling of some of the unique aspects of the moons: - Titan is so large that it affects the orbits of other near-by moons. References: Inner Large Moons. Irregular Moons.
Outer Large Moons. Alkyonides. Ring Shepherds. Co-orbital configuration. In astronomy, a co-orbital configuration refers to two or more celestial objects (such as asteroids, moons, or planets) that orbit at the same, or very similar, distance from their parent object as each other, i.e. they are in a 1:1 mean motion resonance. (or 1:−1 if orbiting in opposite directions[1]) An exchange orbit occurs when two co-orbital objects are of similar masses and thus exert a non-negligible influence on each other. The objects can exchange semi-major axes or eccentricities when they approach each other. Parameters[edit] Orbital parameters that are used to describe the relation of co-orbital objects are the longitude of the periapsis difference and the mean longitude difference. ) and the mean longitude of the sum of the longitude of the ascending node and the argument of periapsis ( Trojans[edit] Trojan points are the points labelled L4 and L5, highlighted in red, on the orbital path of the secondary object (blue), around the primary object (yellow). = (±60°, ±60°).
Eric B. Moonlet. The 400-meter moonlet "Earhart" in Saturn's A Ring, just outside the Encke Gap. Moonlet is an informal term for a particularly small natural satellite. In astronomical literature, it has been used in at least two situations: A belt of objects embedded in a planetary ring, as in Saturn's A Ring or S/2009 S 1 in the B Ring ("propeller" moonlets)[1][2] or in Saturn's F Ring.[3]Occasionally for asteroid moons, such as the moons of 87 Sylvia.[4] See also[edit] References[edit] Further reading[edit] Google Book Search for "moonlet" Moons of Saturn. Artist's concepts of the Saturnian ring–moon system Saturn, its rings and major icy moons—from Mimas to Rhea Images of several moons of Saturn. From left to right: Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea; Titan in the background; Iapetus (top) and irregularly shaped Hyperion (bottom).
Some small moons are also shown. All to scale. The rings of Saturn are made up of objects ranging in size from microscopic to moonlets hundreds of meters across, each in its own orbit about the planet.[7] Thus a precise number of Saturnian moons cannot be given, as there is no objective boundary between the countless small anonymous objects that form Saturn's ring system and the larger objects that have been named as moons. Discovery and naming[edit] Early observations[edit] Observations by spacecraft[edit] Four moons of Saturn can be seen on this image by the Cassini spacecraft: Huge Titan and Dione at the bottom, small Prometheus (under the rings) and tiny Telesto above center. Outer moons[edit] Naming[edit] About Saturn & Its Moons. Introduction On June 30, 2004, the Cassini spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn to begin the first in-depth, up-close study of the ringed planet and its domain.
As expected, the Saturn System has provided an incredible wealth of opportunities for exploration and discovery. With its initial four-year tour of the Saturn system complete as well as an initial two-year extended mission called the Cassini Equinox Mission, the spacecraft is conducting a second extended mission called the Cassini Solstice Mission. "We're looking at a string of remarkable discoveries -- about Saturn's magnificent rings, its amazing moons, its dynamic magnetosphere and about Titan's surface and atmosphere," says Dr.
Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist. Cassini's observations of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, have given scientists a glimpse of what Earth might have been like before life evolved. Why the "Cassini Solstice Mission? " Science Objectives. Saturn PHOTO Shows Moons Tethys And Enceladus In High Resolution. The international Cassini spacecraft mission is a match made in heaven: it pairs advanced imaging technology with Saturn, arguably our most photogenic planet. Only two of the ringed planet's 62 moons are captured in the glorious photo below—others may be too small to be visible. Download the image in various formats here. But the moons that do show up are small by Earth's standards. Tethys's diameter is about one-fifth that of our own moon, and Enceladus' about one-eleventh. At the resolution you see below, almost 14,000 square miles are contained within every pixel.
Cassini, short for Cassini-Huygens, is a joint project between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ISA). It's not just there to take pretty pictures like this one—its mission objectives include studying the precise shape of Saturn's rings and the geological composition of the planet's moons.
More Cassini Images: