Talk:Moons of Saturn/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Skathi

Just wandered onto this page and found a couple of disagreements between the wikipedia entry and the official nomenclature given by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The IAU has designated Saturn XXVII to be called 'Skathi', not 'Skadi' as noted in this article. Also, Saturn XXX has been given the name 'Thrymr', not 'Thrym'.

If there are no objections, I'll make the necessary edits - this will mean redirecting the given links for these two satellites as well. Zaphod Beeblebrox 02 Jul 04

Can you give an exact citation for the IAU page? Different sources give different versions of Skathi vs. Skadi, Thrymr vs. Thrym, Suttungr vs. Suttung. At one point I think we settled on the latter versions, I don't remember why. -- Curps 18:04, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The exact reference is http://www.iau.org/IAU/News/jupiter.html - dont be fooled by the name - it gives the IAU designations for newly discovered natural satellites of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 18:34, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

After some discussion with Curps we have between us located three different sources:

• The IAU Circular 8177 : http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/08100/08177.html lists Suttung, Skadi, Thrym.

• A notice about the July 2003 [not 2004, as stated in the link] meeting of the WGPSN : http://www.iau.org/IAU/News/jupiter.html lists Suttungr, Skathi and Thrymr.

• The USGS Astrogeology program : http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/append7.html lists Suttungr, Skathi and Thrymr

To get a definitive answer on this one, I have emailed those credited with the discovery of the satellites, along with the President of the IAU's Working Group on Planetary System Nomemclature in order to try to reach some sort of resolution -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 20:31, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Just an update - Kaare Aksnes (President of the WGPSN) out of office until 26th July -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 20:40, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

One of my emails has received a reply ; Brother Guy Consolmagno (a member of the WGPSN), fowarded a section from an email he received from Kaare Aksnes on this matter -

"The correct spellings are XXIII Suttungr, XXVII Skathi and XXX Thrymr. The anglicized forms Suttung, Skadi and Thrym were originally accepted by the IAU Working Group on Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN) and announced on IAUC 8177. But the names were later changed in accordance with the original norse spellings, see http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov"

I hope that this settles the matter - the IAU appear to have adopted the official Norse spellings for these bodies.

Mundilfäri

Although the norse giant may be named "Mundilfäri", the official IAU name for the moon is umlaut-less.

Urhixidur 14:10, 2004 Aug 13 (UTC)

---

I've noticed some planets have their moons listed in bold if they're large moons. is this accepted practice? if so what's the radius limit? A radius of 500 kms seems to be at a gap in moon radiuses. It's useful, I think, if there continues to be discoveries of more and more moons.

SpookyMulder 14:10, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Could you give examples (i.e. links)? I'm not sure I see what you mean.

Urhixidur 03:30, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus%27_natural_satellites

SpookyMulder 13:00, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ah, I see. It seems the author's choice, no more, no less. So, to answer your question: No, it is not an expected practice. It is certainly acceptable to use emphasis on the major objects, but the author's choice of which ones are deserving of emphasis is certainly not linked to some kind of universal criterion. One may wish to emphasise those moons with high inclinations or eccentricities rather than large radii, for example.

Urhixidur 05:06, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)

New satellites

Has anyone any data on the new Saturnian satellites (Polydeuces a.k.a. S/2004 S 5, S/2004 S 6) found by Cassini? Only crumbs of information I can find are here. Jyril 15:19, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

How weird! I try to keep very careful track of new moons. Where did 5 and 6 come from? --Patteroast 15:56, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Could it simply be a typo for '3'? Given the otherwise puzzling lack of a '3' and '4' on the list, that would be the simplest explanation. Info on S/2004 S 3 is here. The Singing Badger 18:21, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Or maybe not. It's listed here, too as 'S5'. Puzzling... The Singing Badger 18:24, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've got a question. Where is the source that mentions 2004 S6? I haven't found that listed anywhere. --Patteroast 21:44, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

IAUC 8432...Which we don't have access to any more. Damn, damn, and damn!

Urhixidur 00:28, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

S/2005 S 1

I added some info on this moon which apparently is unconfirmed and may orbit within the Keeler Gap. Unfortunately, full information can only be found in the subscription-only IAUC 8524. If anyone subscribes, could they please double check the information? The Singing Badger 19:03, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Hello again! Here's the relevant section of IAUC 8524. kwami 02:43, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

C. C. Porco, CICLOPS, Space Science Institute, Boulder; and the Cassini Imaging Science Team report the discovery of a new satellite of Saturn, designated S/2005 S 1, orbiting within the Keeler gap in Saturn's outer A ring. (The object had been previously inferred from the presence of features observed on the outer edge of the Keeler gap; cf. Porco et al. 2005, Science 307, 1226, Fig. 10). The object was discovered in six images taken over 16 min on May 1 from a time-lapse sequence of 0.180-s narrow-angle-camera exposures that were targeted to the illuminated side of the outer edge of the A ring (with phase angle about 33 deg and image scale 6.9 km/pixel). S/2005 S 1 was subsequently found in 32 (7 km/pixel) low-phase images taken of the F ring on Apr. 13 (spanning 18 min) and again in two high-resolution (3.54 km/pixel) low-phase images taken on May 2, when its 7-km disk was resolved. The satellite orbits Saturn every 0.594 day at a distance of 136500 km. The estimated geometric albedo is 0.5. The data are too coarse to yield any statistically significant orbital eccentricity or inclination.

All the IAU circulars can be found at a public archive at,

http://www.ing.iac.es/~library/IAUC/8000/

I didn't know that! Thanks! The Singing Badger 02:55, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, not all. It seems to start with IAUC 6322, which is unfortunate. Methone (moon) needs IAUC 6162, for example...

Urhixidur 12:11, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

Shorter lists

• Kwami see how I did it. That was an example for all the moons of the S.S. not Saturn. Yes, Mars is the problem, but not a serious one (I kept it in the picture). Because i focusses on the big moons, many people that did not know nothing about it are now interrested, in fact it brought ppl to pt l. wikipedia. I didnt said to remove the moonlets from this article. This article is about Saturn, so it we should keep them all. But we should CREATE a new table (with the 7 main moons - the same should be done to the Jupiter/Uranus moons articles) and it would be the first table where we could compare the data about the real moons of Saturn, their size, density, gravity, etc... And all the natural satellites would be in a less important table at the end of the article. I'm interested in people getting interested in moons that are real planets, and this scares people because most "moons" are uninteresting, they are not what "we" think they are and one can make no data comparisons, remember that the public think in a moon to be like our moon, and most of these are just space garbage. That is why wikipedians prefer to use "moon" instead of "satellite" isn’t it? One immediately sees what it is. Just my view of things... in astronomy, I prefer to edit in other language. -Pedro 15:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• BTW, There are new pics in the cassini site of Calypso and Pandora. -Pedro 15:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The Pandora pic is a repeat and is already in the article. I'll crop down the new Calypso pic. kwami 23:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I think Pedro has a point. I don't share his disdain for the 'space garbage' moons which could be very interesting for all we know, but I do agree that the larger moons are the primary centres of interest for casual readers and it would be nice to have a shorter table on the planet's main pages, with the 'natural satellites' pages giving the full table of all mooons. To resolve the Mars issue, we could think of it in terms of relative importance: Phobos and Deimos are important because they orbit a small planet with only 2 moons. But the similarly sized outer moons of Saturn are less important in relative terms because the planet is vast, and it has moons to spare.

Just a thought. I'd do it myself but I'm busy busy busy ... The Singing Badger 23:04, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I think a highlights table in the moon sections of the gas giant articles would be nice. Don't know about the 'moons of the Solar system' article, but that's something to think about too - why not simply mention the numbers of smaller regular and irregular moons, and refer readers to the individual articles if they want more? kwami 23:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• Go for it. About the space junk: Badger, you're correct. They would be useful as a mining resource or to terraform Mars. And the shepards are useful for shapping the rings.--Pedro 16:16, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Rearranging list

I think it is silly that the moons are arranged by their Roman Numeral names. It results in a meaningless list; they're not in order of size, discovery date, distance from the planet, or anything useful at all. So I have decided to rearrange them by distance from Saturn (following the practice at Jupiter's natural satellites). If anyone dislikes this, revert away! The Singing Badger 03:44, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, its much better this way. But do we really need the pronouncations or discovery dates on this and other natural satellite lists? I think the table is becoming too wide for small displays. --Jyril 11:30, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

The table is getting slightly unwieldly although it is not yet a problem in my browser. Here are some suggestions (in order of importance):

1. Remove 'Mass' - it's rather technical and not very interesting for the casual user who would find the diameter a good enough guide to the object's size

2. Remove 'Position' - already explained at the bottom of the page, and less necessary now table is rearranged in order of distance from Saturn

3. Remove the word 'Saturn' from the Roman numerals

4. Remove pronunciations if necessary, although they are very useful for casual users.

Thoughts?

The Singing Badger 19:02, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I guess this depends on what we want Wikipedia to be good for. If people have to go elsewhere for any details, why come here at all?

If we take anything out, I think we should keep it elsewhere. I think position is nice to have in the table right where it is, because it gives some meaning to the distance numbers. But we could take out the Roman numeral S-X numbers and discovery dates and put them in a cross reference table along with the temporary designations that someone already took out. None of these are important for a general overview, but if the only info someone has on a moon is S-2002x, they're critical.

If we take out mass, perhaps we can start a physical specs table and put mass there. We could then link three tables at the top of the page:

• The basics (name, pronunciation, diameter, orbital distance, and group/position);
• Physical specs (name, mass, density, composition, albedo, and orbital specs: period, eccentricity, inclination, etc);
• History (name, Roman number, temporary designation, discovery date, and discoverer).

I think there are a couple advantages to doing it this way: People can access just what they want, without being swamped; we won't loose anything that will make visitors need to search elsewhere; and wikipedians will feel free to add to the now more manageable tables (surface gravity or escape velocity anyone? --we might eventually need two tables for orbital vs. physical specs).

Maybe we can leave the latter two/three tables for the very end of the article, or simply put them on their own pages. And by the way, arranging by distance is definitely the way to go. --kwami 02:46, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I guess I didn't make myself clear. My point was that anyone wishing to know the mass of a moon can go straight to the moon's own page, where there is a very complete table of everything you ever wanted to know about it, including it mass. So trimming down the table wouldn't be a case of 'taking out information', just an acknowledgement that there are some items of info that are of fundamental importance, such as size and distance, and then there is more technical info like mass and density and so on, which can safely be relegated to the individual pages of the moons.

My feeling is that breaking the list into 3 separate ones is less user friendly than it is at the moment. I think the real question is what information is 'fundamentally important' and what isn't?

(Let me just stress again that the table is looking fine in my browser at the moment - although I think we've reached the maximum number of columns). The Singing Badger 18:48, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. As long as a search of the temporary designation turns up the right moon, no problem. I think we should keep at least name, pronunciation, diameter, orbital distance, and group/position as the basics, plus maybe the Roman numerals if that's not easily searchable. However, I think the orbital data is much more convenient in a table for the whole system than it would be if listed by individual moon. If both the basics and orbital specs won't fit easily in one table, then I think we should have two. (And really, how much do raw eccentricity numbers mean to most casual readers?)

So I'd agree on taking out mass and "Saturn". Personally, I'd rather have position than period in the basics, because it's useful when first learning the moons, but that may just be me. I'd retain pronounciation, because it's nice to have with the whole list for kids trying to learn the names. (But I may be a little biased there!) Another possibility would be to put pronunciation in the same column with the name, but with a line break, making the list longer but narrower. (I wouldn't really like that, though, and we aren't that desperate for space.) --kwami 21:39, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This all sounds good to me. I think 'period' is necessary to give some meaning to the 'distance' numbers. The Singing Badger 00:27, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Of physical characteristics, I think that size, distance and period columns are necessary. Mass column can be removed, since it's too technical, and we don't known well enough the masses of small moons anyway. --Jyril 07:50, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Looks like we have a consensus, so I've removed 'Mass' and the word 'Saturn' from the roman numerals. The Singing Badger 16:11, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Arranged by Roman Numeral names makes sense, and it is better if someone trying to find new discovered moons. It is much like the asteroid numbers for asteroids, used at some scientific areas. — Yaohua2000 18:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

highlighting

The table is so crowded that it's difficult to navigate. I've bolded the names and highlit the rows for all spheroidal moons, and made the row for Titan darker since it's lunar sized. I know there are lots of arbitrary ways to classify the moons, and it would be nice to include Hyperion and Phoebe as well. Some of you might object to the choice I made, but "irregular moon" is a phrase that crops up frequently in the lit ('Hyperion is the largest irregular moon', etc.), so I thought this was as close to objective as we were likely to get. If people like something else better, great, but I think it's best to do something to visually distinguish the 'main' moons if for no other reason than making the table more accessible to school kids writing reports. kwami 05:26, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

• Titan is more Mars sized than Lunar sized, IMO.

The Cassini picture of Hyperion is fascinating, but it is just a normal potato with very odd skin. ok... it is the most curious potato in the s.s.. There are too many natural satellites, now. These news "moons" are not only a problem to kids, but to any reader. In the moons' article of the Port. lang. wiki I've just added big moons: pt:Satélite_natural#Luas do sistema solar (From Mimas to Ganymede) with info about them and with links to smaller moons (Jupiter has 59 smaller moons, etc.). There are 20 moons in the solar system that are big enough, and it is a very good number. The article is now nicer, without the space garbage in the article. Now everyone can explore and get to know info about the real moons of the Solar System. In this case (the article is just about the moons of Saturn), you must add the info about all of them. But I would not put the table in the forefront, but grouping the main moons (which are seven in Saturn) in a section (which would be the first section). The alterations you've made were good enough, though. -Pedro 18:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

So Mars then doesn't have any real moons, right? kwami 23:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm against any chopping of the list. If the number of the satellites rise to hundreds, the table could be moved to a new article. Highlighting the major moons is doubleplusgood.

Small clarification: the term 'irregular' refers to the orbit of a satellite (they have eccentric, tilted, or retrograde orbits); irregular satellites are all captured. For example, Triton is an irregular satellite whereas Hyperion is not. You meant irregularly-shaped moon.--Jyril 10:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, we should color code irregular/captured moons as well. I've seen 'irregular' used both ways, though of course we should try to be more precise than that. kwami 11:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Kwami, I like this highlighting but I think the light grey colour is too subtle; it barely registers when I'm using my laptop, and in the Saturn table the light blue and light grey are difficult to distinguish. Maybe make it a darker grey? Also, maybe experiment with making the spherical moons red rather than blue: they might stand out better. Just a thought. The Singing Badger 15:13, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Why don't you play around with it, Badge? I only chose the purple because it matches the existing color scheme of the article, and grey because that iconically indicates that the irregular moons are somehow less important than the others. (I think that can be justified: no one is proposing a Jovian moon orbiter for the outer irregulars!) Other colors would be fine. However, if the colors are too dark, it will be difficult to read the text, and we don't want a light-colored text on a dark background either. Perhaps we could use different darker font colors to help disambiguate the background colors? Well, give it a shot so it works on your laptop and see how it turns out. kwami 23:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I can't distinguish the colours either. Bright colours can still allow people to read the text - List_of_US_Presidents or you could consider a new tiny column for colour like List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. Of course these use colours to reflect the parties and maybe bright colours aren't as applicable here. Nevertheless I was wondering for a few seconds where all these new spheroid moons came from! --86.130.147.16 18:11, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I have been experimenting at this temporary page: User:The Singing Badger/Saturn's moons. I got busy and forgot about it, but please continue the experiments if you like. I think the red and pink are better than the blue, but the two greys are still too similar. The Singing Badger 18:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Number of Moons

Saturn's tally of moons is currently at 50. According to their respective wikipedia articles, 35 have been confirmed enough to have been assigned names by the IAU. A larger number have been confirmed, but according to the articles on Wikipedia, three are not known to be moons or just ring-clumps, therefore their status as confirmed moons is debatable:

• From the article on S/2004 S 3:

"Scientists cannot yet definitively say if the object is a moon or a temporary clump of ring material."

• From the article on S/2004 S 4:

"S/2004 S 4 is the designation of an unconfirmed moon of Saturn announced by the Cassini Imaging Team on September 9, 2004. "

• From the article on S/2004 S 6:

"S/2004 S 6 is the provisional designation of a natural satellite of Saturn that was discovered in 2004 (on October 28 images) by the Cassini probe team, led by Carolyn C. Porco et al. The moon appears to be in the vicinity of the F Ring, and may be a clump of ring material, like S/2004 S 3 and S/2004 S 4."

In other words, these three moons (out of the 50 listed on Wikipedia) may not be moons at all, but clumps of debris, and their status as moons has not yet been confirmed.

One user keeps re-editing this Wikipedia article to say that 48 moons are confirmed, but the 48 number is not consistant with the existing Saturnian satellite articles, nor is it consistant with the articles on Jupiter's, Uranus', or Neptune's natural satellites, which all list the total number of moons, rather than just the confirmed number. For example, the article on Neptune lists the total number of moons, even though some have yet to be confirmed.

I have re-edited the article to the 50 number, as this is wholly consistant with the other articles on Wikipedia, and hope that the user who is editing "48" back into the article will stop.--Firsfron 14:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Firsfron, "confirmed enough to have been assigned names by the IAU" means that their orbits a well enough established for the moon to be recovered decades from now if need be. However, in a couple cases, and only for Saturn, objects were seen that are not known to be moons. If you have evidence that the number of known moons is 47 instead of 48, fine. However, 50 is wrong. We do not know that Saturn has 50 moons, and therefore we should not say that Saturn has 50 moons. (It actually has millions, of course, as the article states, but we're dealing with demonstrated individual objects in the table.) I'm reverting back to 48. kwami 19:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

And *I'm* reverting it to 47. The 48 number is demonstratably wrong, and I don't know why if you knew it was wrong, you would revert it to 48. In fact, the very page listed as a source lists 47, NOT 48, so changing it back to 48 is senseless, and always was. The 50 number is based on uniformity with Jupiter's, Uranus', and Neptune's pages, which do list unconfirmed moons, and even did during the time when Uranian moon 1986 U 10's very existance was debated.--Firsfron 04:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

If anyone of you wants to make a modification, don't forget to also modify the number in article Saturn. — Yaohua2000 20:23, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, you don't have to do that now since I've removed the numbers from that article. :) — Yaohua2000 20:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

And thanks, Yaohua, for removing the numbers from the Saturn article. I saw, also, the edit made to this article's page, and although I appreciate the edit, I'm wondering why there is a dispute at all: the page listed as a source lists 47, the individual articles on confirmed moons total 47, and the total number of Saturnian moons listed in the Saturn infobox is 50. 48 is an incorrect number, and always was. If Kwami has a good source that lists 48 confirmed moons, it's not hard to list that as a source, and then the article will be correct. As it stands now, the source listed says there are only 47 confirmed satellites, not 48, and the Saturn satellite infobox on Wikipedia has 50.--Firsfron 04:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

There's no dispute any longer, if you're not pushing for 50 confirmed moons. I'll remove the warning and get the article in sync. kwami 06:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good!--Firsfron 15:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

most diameters are wrong

most of these diameters disagree with the individual articles and with NASA's moon profiles site, even accounting for rounding. I don't want to make more than a few corrections, because the NASA site contradicts itself, sometimes not even distinguishing radius from diameter. Could someone with access to reliable data verify the diameters?

(moons with contradictory info on a single page at NASA include Calypso, Epimetheus, Janus, Dione, Methone, Pallene, Pandora, Prometheus, Telesto. Ones differing from both this site and the individual articles (at least before I edited them) are Hyperion, Mimas, Polydeuces (13 instead of 3.5 km!).

thanks, kwami 10:10, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

With the Saturnian system, you are going to see contradictions for a while. Cassini will continue to aquire images that will further refine the diameters, but everyone may not be on the same page. I have updated the chart with all the diameters that have been measured by Cassini. You can easily identify these updates as those with notes (9) and (10). These are based on limb measurements from Voyager and Cassini images taken as of late December 2005. If an individual article has not been updated with these numbers, go ahead and update them with these numbers. Some of these changes are rather drastic, particularly with the smaller satellites. The sources I used list density as well for these moons so I (or someone else) can update the individual articles based on these new figures.

But to be clear, the best course of action is to look at scientific articles or extended abstracts (like the sources I used for this update), rather than webpages, unless you know they have been updated recently. You almost have to treat this like a current events article, than a normal science article because information is so fluid (even something seemingly rudimentary like size estimates). Volcanopele 19:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Enceladus peer review

I've put up the article for Enceladus up for peer review. Suggestions or edits that really help to improve the article would certainly be appreciated. Perhaps at some point the article could reach good, or even featured article status with everyone's help. --Volcanopele 22:35, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I've put the Enceladus article up for another peer review. Hopefully, following this, the article can be made a WP:FAC. --Volcanopele 19:52, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Nine new satellites

S/2004 S 19 [1] and eight others (S/2006 S 1 ... S/2006 S 8) [2] announced today.--JyriL ^talk 09:56, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Created some stubs for them.. but the information is probably not entirely accurate. Definitely could take some looking over by someone better at reading the MPEC than I am. :P -Patteroast 16:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Rename page?

Would the title of this page (and the others like it) be better as Natural satellites of Saturn, rather than having an apostrophe in the title? --Mike Peel 19:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Using cite.php for the footnotes in the table

I've just applied the Cite.php footnotes system to the table (see WP:CITE). I'm unsure if they are an improvement over the way they were done before or not, though, and am seeking opinions. They have the advantage of being auto-numbered, and linked, but the disadvantage that they make the code for the table look a bit more messy - plus the text must be applied to the first <ref> tag, otherwise the footnote is blank. What do y'all think? --Mike Peel 20:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

S/2004 S 3

OK, I'm losing count of all these moons! Has 2004 S3 now been confirmed? If so, where's the evidence for this? Thank, The Singing Badger 00:10, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

IAUC 8432, in the S/2004 S 3 references, reports its recovery. So, yes, it has now been confirmed.

Urhixidur 12:07, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

IAUC 8432!? It's toooooooooooold... Yaohua2000 12:55, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

Cheers! The Singing Badger 13:02, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Now the same imaging guys are reporting that it was probably a transient clump because a dedicated search on 15 November, 2004 couldn't find it, and objects seen later don't match up. Reference here − Astronomical Journal 132, p. 692 (2006). On page 706 of that they say "Therefore, the November 15 observations strongly suggest that S3 and S4 had disappeared by that time." Deuar 14:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

• You can't name rocks of 5km a moon... it is still big, but not a moon. Will the astronomers discover and name every particle of the rings around the gas giants? These new debris (ooops moons) are really interresting findings! Lets open a bottle!!! But nice and informative article, although the info in here is different from the one in the French wikipedia (which is very developed in planetology topics), namely in the name of the groups. Although the information in here is very well organized. -Pedro 08:28, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

There is now agreement in the astro community that they will have to stop naming new moonlets. I don't think there's yet an agreement on what the minimum size that warrants a name will be, however. Probably nothing under 1km will get a name, but I think some of the named moons are only 2-3km. (Maybe 1km radius would work?) kwami 18:15, 2005 August 13 (UTC)

• I think a 10 km would be more acceptable. The Martian sattelites would still be moons (So Mars wouldnt loose its moonlets), these new rocks, should be named just rocks or ice or wathever... And the moons devided in two classes: moons (+~400 km) and moonlets (400-10). 1 km is a very small size... Did you see the pic of what they consider a moon? A small point in the middle of a ring. I've heard about that problem, it is similar or worse than planets/asteroids. Cause many new moons are debris of ice that can disappear tomorrow or the day after. --Pedro 19:12, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but what you think doesn't play into it. 2-4km rocks have already been officially named, so the point it moot. As for the "small point in the middle of a ring", it has enough of a gravitational field to have created that gap in the ring system: that's sufficient reason for considering it more than just one of the innumerable rocks that make up the rings. Also, a 1km chunk of ice is not going to evaporate in the next billion years. (Not unless we mine it for water, of course!) kwami 21:27, 2005 August 13 (UTC)

• Ceres was officially named and dethroned from planethood. Many moonlets dont deserve to be called moons.

see:

«The other three moons discovered by Cassini are still saddled with the names S/2004 S3, S/2004 S4, and S/2004 S6. Cassini will continue to scan Saturn's rings and vicinity throughout the four-year mission, hunting down other tiny moons in Saturn's extended family. Ring scientists strongly suspect that many of the gaps in Saturn's ring system are cleared out by moons orbiting within them. But these moons are extremely small--many less than 5 kilometers (3 miles) across; one begins to wonder where the definition of "moon" ends and "ring particle" begins. In fact, new measurements of the densities of the small moons Pan and Atlas indicate that these bodies are likely just loosely collected piles of rubble, and could even be only temporary aggregations of ring matter that could easily be blasted apart to fill in those gaps in the rings by a wayward comet.»

from [[3]]

I even got a new name for them in case someone from the IAU is seeing this: Nymphs, because Nymphs are often companions of gods, and live in one given location i.e. between the rings. --Pedro 20:19, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

images

Saturn's rings - Titan's luminous crescent - Enceladus, whose icy jets are dimly visible at its south pole. North is up.

It would be great if anyone would search for nice pictures like this from Cassini and upload them to commons. --Pedro 19:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Moon contradiction

The article on Saturn says there are 47 moons; this article says there are 56; NASA also says there are 47. Someting needs to be done.--Porsche997SBS 02:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to add that the German Wikipedia says there are 56 moons and the French Wikipedia says there are 47-50.--Porsche997SBS 02:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It was changed June 27 when someone said 9 more had been discovered (see 3 headings above) 24.68.180.163 03:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

...as spotted by JyriL the very day, MPC, Jewitt pages, Sheppard pages. Eurocommuter 14:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• • For the regular reader: Saturn has 7 moons (Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, and Iapetus) and two somewhat interesting orbiting rocks: Phoebe and Hyperion. I'm astonished has there are people who are still "discovering" ring particles, counting and name them with the freakiest names that nobody can pronounce, memorise or knows what they mean; they should find a better hobby. For editors, you're giving too much importance to what's not so important and nobody cares. Foccus on the real moons. --Pedro 18:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, it is certainly a strong opinion. At least 100 researchers do care for the irregular moons (not necessarily for their names). Among the reasons

• their origin gives insight into the origin of the Solar system,
• their orbits have already forced people to get out of the lower drawer some almost forgotten 19th century results in celestial mechanics (special cases of 3-body problem, resonances etc)
• the current positions of the planets could not be the original ones and the orbits of these small moons are the memory of planet migration
• the huge craters on some of the large and notable moons needs some explanation and could find it in collisional theories
• ...

Having said that, I love the large ones as well; I’ve been following Cassini and tried to stitch every single large picture on my Celestia textures to see the large moons progressively uncover…Cheers Eurocommuter 19:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Inclinations Wrong

Most inclinations of the irregular moons in this list seem to be wrong. For example, Siarnaq is listed with an inclination of 45.798°. The article to Siarnaq says that it is actually 60° and that the number 46° refers to the inclination to the eclyptic, not to the inclination to Saturn's equator. I would correct the Numbers but I don't know where to get reliable numbers of the inclination of the moons to Saturn's equator.

Krystman 15:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Apparent Magnitude in Table

As an amateur, I would like to see a column added to the table with the apparent magnitude of moon's identified. This would be great to know which ones I can try to find in my telescope. --Casimir 15:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

IPA for Ijiraq (and Inuit group)

The IPA for Ijiraq is given as 'i.ji.rak . Is it pronounced with an IPA 'j' (like English 'y')? I would have assumed that it was a palato-alveolar affricate (like English 'bridge'). I'm also assuming that the IPA given is a guide to pronunciation in English, rather than the native/reconstructed pronunciation. Using native pronunciation would result in using IPA 'q' for orthographic 'q' in Inuit names. I would edit, but am not sure of standard pronunciation of the moons' names. 150.203.2.85 00:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)maweilian

This is discussed at Talk:Ijiraq (moon). It seems that both the English 'y' and English 'j' pronunciations are acceptable. I'll just call it "Saturn XXII" :-) --Cam 01:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Roman numerals for unnamed moons

why are Roman numerals listed for moons with no name? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jntg4 (talk • contribs) 19:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC).

I don't see why they're listed, either. They seem to just be someone's speculation. Removing until some reason is given... --Patteroast 15:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

New moons

S/2007 S 2 and S/2007 S 3.[4] — JyriL ^talk 20:15, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

added them, but they still need references and the table must be put in order

ok, please someone do the following about s/2007 s2-3: add references to introduction section rearrange table of known moons add references in the table of moons section

New moon: S/2007 S 4 ([5], subscription required).— JyriL ^talk 14:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Jupiter's & Saturn's number of moons

Jupiter has 63 moons and is said to have the most moons in the solar system while Saturn now has 63 moons too. Shouldn't anyone note this until future discoveries are made? 71.106.87.165 18:38, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't count the three very uncertain satellites associated with the F Ring. Since Cassini hasn't managed to confirm them, it seems they were just some transient lumps of ring particles. Similarly, the "moons" discovered by Hubble in the 90s Saturn ring plane crossings turned out not to be real (not counting rediscoveries) and are not listed on this list. None of these moons are listed on the Saturn satellite data page by Scott S. Sheppard either. Based on this, Saturn's moon count would be "only" 60. — JyriL ^talk 19:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

New names

From the Planetary Society Weblog:

• Anthe = S/2007 S 4
• Jarnsaxa = S/2006 S 6
• Greip = S/2006 S 4 (the article says 'Griep', typo?)
• Tarqeq = S/2007 S 1

— JyriL ^talk 14:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

USGS Astrogeology agrees with 'Greip'. [6] --Patteroast 16:42, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

"Moons of Saturn"

There has been consensus to change the name of the Uranus' natural satellites article to "Moons of Uranus" here. This fits the footer, is less jargony, and avoids the apostrophe issue some people complain about with Uranus and Mars. However, this article should have the same format. Anyone here wish to comment, support, or object? kwami 19:36, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Added link to LED talk video in see also

Absolutely inspirational talk and images. Can some of those images be added here? Thank you. TWFred (talk) 17:11, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Orbital period

What does the unit d mean in "Orbital period (d)". It is not clear in the table.--Knulclunk (talk) 22:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It means a day = 86,400 seconds. --Cam (talk) 02:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Irregular

The definition of "irregular" in the first few paragraphs of this article now differs from that shown in the table's color scheme. According to the text, everything out to Iapetus (the closest 22 confirmed moons) is regular. I don't know enough about the meaning of these terms to reconcile things. --Cam (talk) 04:50, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Reworded. kwami (talk) 06:37, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

G Ring Moonlet S/2008 S1

The IAU put out a circular today that announces a moon or moonlet orbiting within the G Ring arc. This should be included, but I'm not sure whether it counts as similar to the moonlets in the A ring and F ring, or if it should be included with the ring shepards. I'm leaning towards the former.

67.244.34.43 (talk) 21:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC) Becca Stareyes

Thanks for that. I added it to the table and created a stub at S/2008 S 1. What you could do is take a look at our coverage of the G Ring and update it per this discovery. I don't know how much might need to be changed. kwami (talk) 00:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Image error

The image that showed four moons of saturn now doesnt work, would someone be able to fix this. Mr Deathbat (talk) 14:00, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Mass not sorting properly

The Mass should show Titan on top, but it doesn't. Serendi^podous 18:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It works now. Ruslik (talk) 19:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The orbital period section doesn't sort properly. :-) Serendi^podous 09:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You mean that it sorts by module? Ruslik (talk) 09:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I get it. I was confused because it jumped from -956 to +944 and then back to -943. Serendi^podous 09:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

B Ring Moonlet

This does not appear to be listed yet: A Small Find near Equinox Wnmyers (talk) 18:31, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

IAU circular 9091 announces this as S/2009 S 1. I'm wondering if it should get an article... they really need to make a lower size limit for moons, and quick. --Patteroast (talk) 04:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

if this 2009 discovered moon is included then there will be 62 moons right now the page is only including 61 moons. but acording to http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?sat_discovery this actually is a moon. i think its difinatly big enough to be a moon casue theres a earth crossing named asteroid called hermes and its only 800 feet across and this moonlet is 1200 feet across. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.107.144 (talk) 04:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

If Hermes hit the Earth, it would cause real damage. Plus, when it was discovered, it was quite an unusual body. But this thing is practically lost in the ring; it's just the biggest (perhaps) of millions. kwami (talk)

They gave it a number?? What about all the A-Ring moonlets? I think we should stick with listing it under "ring moonlets". Anything that cannot clear its own channel does not deserve more than that, or where will it end? There are thousands of propeller moonlets. That at least is a readily discernible criterion, whereas absolute size is not.

Too bad we don't have a name for hydrostatically equilibrial moons the way we have 'dwarf planet' (as stupid as that name is, at least it's a label). I've color-coded the charts that way, but it would be nice to have it encoded in the terminology. kwami (talk) 09:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Nonesense Hermes would not cause real damage its only 0.4 km across heres a page saying what size asteroids damage cause http://users.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/climate.htm as you can see on the chart a asteroid only 1 city blocks big wont destroy very much and the world will go on and 2009 discovered moonlet is much larger than hermes we are probably worried about nothing if a small asteroid only 1 city block big hits the world. but i wonder what you mean by its lost in the rings. are you sure that we wont be able to find this asteroid again and that its foolish to catalog big ring chunks. if thats so why are they doing that?. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.107.144 (talk) 15:09, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

A crater 24km in diameter (say where Akron used to be) and global crop failures and mass famine would not be "real" damage? I suppose Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't suffer any real damage either.

Besides, we didn't know how big Hermes was when it was discovered. Here was an asteroid close enough to strike the Earth: that deserved a name.

By "lost in the rings" I mean that it is completely dominated by the surrounding ring structure. If it weren't for the shadow it cast, it would be almost undetectable. kwami (talk) 02:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

no a asteroid 1 km across causes a crater 24 km across but im certain a asteroid the size of 0.4 km like hermes would cause alot less damage and not make as big of a crater. the reason Hermes was discovered was casue it was about 1 million miles away and that was the distance that the probe was from the large asteroid ring chunk that got a name. we dont have anything to fear from hermes. it would not casue global crop failures you did not look at the chart clearly enough. besides Hermes is going to hit something it crosses the path of many object mars ,Luna ,Earth sometimes venus its just a matter of time. all im saying is the ring chunks are really big and they probably are not moons but they are being catologed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.107.144 (talk) 00:55, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Moons of Saturn table

Although it would be hard to fit all of them, it would be cool to have a table of all of Saturn's moons. If you are wondering what I am talking about, go see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Solar_System and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:55_Cancri. It would be something like those, except showing Saturn and it's moons instead of a star and it's planets. It probably wouldn't just be good for it's moons, but for other moon systems in the solar system, and even moons in other solar systems (if some get discovered soon). Just an idea, I'm ok if you disapprove of it, but just giving you an idea. Theguywhohatestwitter (talk) 15:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

So it would be something like this?

Serendi^podous 15:48, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I've just realized that there is already one, so don't bother adding on. Theguywhohatestwitter (talk) 15:50, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

is one of saturn's moon's called pandora what are the other's called —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.215.207.1 (talk) 04:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey guys!

Astronomers discovered 20 new moons! Who's gonna edit the page?

TheLeaf321 (talk) 01:05, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

@TheLeaf321: You're about 1.3 years too late. Nrco0e (talk · contribs) 03:28, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh.

TheLeaf321 (talk) 12:26, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Wrong number of moons

The Wikipedia entry says 83, but the BBC article and NASA both say 82. 84.217.31.198 (talk) 20:25, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

The count is 83 as of 2021, when the newly-discovered moon S/2019 S 1 was announced in 2021. Believe it or not, NASA's Solar System Exploration site is not very reliable because it barely gets updated at all. The most accurate and up-to-date information about the planetary moon counts are from NASA-JPL's Solar System Dynamics website: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sats/discovery.html Nrco0e (talk · contribs) 04:14, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

All named after Gallic mythological figures?

Astronomy really isn't my field, so I'm taking this one to the talk page first. The article says about the irregular satellites that they "have been classified by their orbital characteristics into the Inuit, Norse, and Gallic groups, and their names are chosen from the corresponding mythologies, with one exception: Phoebe (part of the Norse group but named for a Greek Titaness)". That's clear enough, but the trouble is that another of them, Bebhionn in the Gallic group, was according to its article named after an Irish goddess, Béḃinn. Her article describes Béḃinn as being also a figure in Welsh mythology, but Gallic isn't mentioned. Perhaps there's something in the sources of our Moons of Saturn article, inaccessible to me, that justifies the claim I quoted above. Does anyone know? --Antiquary (talk) 21:52, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

I suspect that the "Gallic" requirement was broadened to "Celtic" in general. Double sharp (talk) 15:32, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Row numbers

@Nrco0e: While I agree for Jupiter, shouldn't we reflect Janus-Epimetheus by "tying" their numbers? Same for Tethys-Telesto-Calypso and Dione-Helene-Polydeuces. And I guess the moonlets should not get a number. Double sharp (talk) 10:36, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately that's a limitation of the static row numbers table. Order by distance becomes meaningless for irregular moons that are particularly clustered, due to their orbits being constantly perturbed and changed on a yearly basis. Last time I had to update the Saturnian moons' mean orbital elements from JPL, there was a lot of order swapping that made fixing the number order rather cumbersome. What should matter more is that the row number reflects the number of moons that planet has. Nrco0e (talk) 16:49, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nrco0e: OK, I agree. (Kicking myself for not realising it incidentally, but that's probably because I hardly think about irregulars that aren't Triton.) But still, the moonlets should not have a number, right? (Now the list goes to 84 instead of 83 because of them.) And perhaps to avoid giving the impression that it is ordering by distance when that indeed makes no sense for irregulars.

Also, you may like to weigh in on the AfD for Skathi. Double sharp (talk) 17:26, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

As long as we have that column, ppl are going to think it's an absolute order, and claim that X is "Saturn's 56th moon." Best just get rid of it. — kwami (talk) 00:46, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

+1 Double sharp (talk) 06:32, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Done. Removed from other lists as well, and added a 'label' column header to those that were missing one. — kwami (talk) 09:40, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

There are no unnamed regulars -- or else there are thousands

We say, There are still 61 unnamed moons (as of May 2023), of which all but one is irregular.

All of the regulars are named, unless we count S/2009 S 1. But S/2009 S 1 is a ring moonlet, notable only because it's in the B ring rather than the A. If we count it, then there are hundreds of unnamed regular moons, so either way the statement is incorrect.

I'll change the wording to There are 60 unnamed moons beyond the rings (as of May 2023), all irregular. But if our counts otherwise include S/2009 S 1, they should all be reduced by 1.

We also say, If named, they will receive names from Gallic, Norse and Inuit mythology based on the orbital groups of the moons. But S/2009 S 1 will not, so 'they' does not match its reference, another reason not to count it. Also, there are several unnamed irregulars that are not in one of the three groups, or at least not yet confirmed to be, so this wording is unlikely to be accurate. I'll try a fix.

— kwami (talk) 00:35, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Isn't Saturn LIII Aegaeon (= S/2008 S 1) also a (G-ring) moonlet? Anyway, the issue with S/2009 S 1 could be dealt with by explicitly considering only moons that have an official designation. Double sharp (talk) 16:48, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Missing refs

@Nrco0e: it looks like you introduced a couple of ref names with no definition last month. Could you please fill in those refs? -- Fyrael (talk) 15:31, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. Nrco0e (talk) 17:23, 7 June 2023 (UTC)