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An annotated picture of Saturn's many moons captured by the Cassini spacecraft. Shown in the image are Dione, Enceladus, Epimetheus, Prometheus, Mimas, Rhea, Janus, Tethys and Titan. The moons of Saturn are numerous and diverse, ranging from tiny moonlets only tens of meters across to the enormous Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury.
Pan is the innermost named moon of Saturn. [4] It is approximately 35 kilometres across and 23 km wide and orbits within the Encke Gap in Saturn's A Ring. Pan is a ring shepherd and is responsible for keeping the Encke Gap free of ring particles. It is sometimes described as having the appearance of a walnut, or ravioli. [5]
The moon would have been torn apart by Saturn's tidal forces, somewhere between 200 and 100 million years ago. Up to 99% of the moon's mass would have been swallowed by Saturn, with the remaining 1% forming the rings of Saturn. [2] The origin of Saturn's rings from the destruction of a satellite has been previously proposed by other authors. [3]
Explore all 63 of Saturn's verified moons, along with their names and discovery dates. Other moons await official confirmation of their discovery.
Discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, Titan was the first known moon of Saturn and the sixth known planetary satellite (after Earth's moon and the four Galilean moons of Jupiter). Titan orbits Saturn at 20 Saturn radii or 1,200,000 km above Saturn's apparent surface. From Titan's surface, Saturn subtends an arc of 5.09 ...
Dione (/ d aɪ ˈ oʊ n i /), also designated Saturn IV, is the fourth-largest moon of Saturn.With a mean diameter of 1,123 km and a density of about 1.48 g/cm 3, Dione is composed of an icy mantle and crust overlying a silicate rocky core, with rock and water ice roughly equal in mass.
Saturn’s moon Enceladus may have all the ingredients necessary to host life, according to a new study based on data from Nasa’s Cassini spacecraft mission.. The spacecraft ended its mission in ...
Tethys (/ ˈ t iː θ ɪ s, ˈ t ɛ θ ɪ s /), or Saturn III, is the fifth-largest moon of Saturn, measuring about 1,060 km (660 mi) across. It was discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1684, and is named after the titan Tethys of Greek mythology .