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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. There are 146 moons with confirmed orbits , the most of any planet in the Solar System.
Size comparison between Mimas (lower left), the Moon (upper left) and Earth. Mimas is the smallest and innermost of Saturn's major moons. The surface area of Mimas is slightly less than the land area of Spain or California. The low density of Mimas, 1.15 g/cm 3, indicates that it is composed mostly of water ice with only a small amount of rock.
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.
The new discovery increases the moons orbiting the "jewel of our solar system" to 82, surpassing Jupiter 20 new moons were discovered around Saturn Skip to main content
Of the Solar System's eight planets and its nine most likely dwarf planets, six planets and seven dwarf planets are known to be orbited by at least 300 natural satellites, or moons. At least 19 of them are large enough to be gravitationally rounded; of these, all are covered by a crust of ice except for Earth's Moon and Jupiter's Io . [ 1 ]
A deep ocean exists beneath the icy, cratered surface of Saturn’s moon Mimas, according to a new analysis of data from NASA’s Cassini mission.
From time to time, Saturn is occulted by the Moon (that is, the Moon covers up Saturn in the sky). As with all the planets in the Solar System, occultations of Saturn occur in "seasons". Saturnian occultations will take place monthly for about a 12-month period, followed by about a five-year period in which no such activity is registered.
The adjectival forms of the names of astronomical bodies are not always easily predictable. Attested adjectival forms of the larger bodies are listed below, along with the two small Martian moons; in some cases they are accompanied by their demonymic equivalents, which denote hypothetical inhabitants of these bodies.