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In the Solar System, many of the asteroid-sized moons have retrograde orbits, whereas all the large moons except Triton (the largest of Neptune's moons) have prograde orbits. [13] The particles in Saturn's Phoebe ring are thought to have a retrograde orbit because they originate from the irregular moon Phoebe.
Siarnaq is the largest member of Saturn's Inuit group of prograde irregular moons, which orbit far from Saturn in the same direction as the planet's rotation. The moons of the Inuit group are believed to have originated as fragments from the collisional breakup of a larger progenitor moon after it was gravitationally captured into orbit around ...
Orbits around the L 1 point are used by spacecraft that want a constant view of the Sun, such as the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. Orbits around L 2 are used by missions that always want both Earth and the Sun behind them. This enables a single shield to block radiation from both Earth and the Sun, allowing passive cooling of sensitive ...
Two prograde moons of Saturn do not definitively belong to either the Inuit or Gallic groups. [1] S/2004 S 24 and S/2006 S 12 have similar orbital inclinations as the Gallic group, but have much more distant orbits with semi-major axes of ~400 Saturn radii and ~340 Saturn radii, respectively. [84] [13] [1]
The discovery of 20 new moons of Saturn was announced in October 2019 by a team led by Scott S. Sheppard using the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea. One of them, S/2004 S 24, is also prograde and of similar inclination, but it orbits much further away from Saturn than the other Gallic moons. This moon will nevertheless also receive a name from ...
At first, Skathi was given the temporary name "S/2000 S 8": the first "S" denotes that Skathi is a satellite (as opposed to, say, a planetary ring), "2000" specifies that it was discovered in the year 2000, the second "S" is assigned because it orbits the planet Saturn, and the number 8 means that it was the eighth such object discovered in ...
Alan Stern calls these satellite planets, although the term major moon is more common. The smallest natural satellite that is gravitationally rounded is Saturn I Mimas (radius 198.2 ± 0.4 km). This is smaller than the largest natural satellite that is known not to be gravitationally rounded, Neptune VIII Proteus (radius 210 ± 7 km).
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...