#Atlas of moons plus

There are 83 designated moons that are still unnamed (as of May 2023 ) all but one (the designated B-ring moonlet S/2009 S 1) are irregular. Over 150 moonlets embedded in the rings have been detected by the disturbance they create in the surrounding ring material, though this is thought to be only a small sample of the total population of such objects. Thus a precise number of Saturnian moons cannot be given, because 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. 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 around Saturn. The sole exception is Phoebe, the ninth moon of Saturn and largest irregular one, discovered at the end of the 19th century it is part of the Norse group but named for a Greek Titaness. The irregular satellites are classified by their orbital characteristics into the prograde Inuit and Gallic groups and the large retrograde Norse group, and their names are chosen from the corresponding mythologies (with the Gallic group corresponding to Celtic mythology).

#Atlas of moons plus

Saturn is expected to have around 150 irregular satellites larger than 2.8 km (1.7 mi) in diameter, plus many hundreds more that are even smaller. These moons are probably captured minor planets, or fragments from the collisional breakup of such bodies after they were captured, creating collisional families. The remaining 122, with mean diameters ranging from 2 to 213 km (1 to 132 mi), are irregular satellites, whose orbits are much farther from Saturn, have high inclinations, and are mixed between prograde and retrograde. The regular satellites are traditionally named after Titans and Titanesses or other figures associated with the mythological Saturn. The remaining regular moons orbit near the outer edge of the dense A Ring, within the diffuse G Ring, and between the major moons Mimas and Enceladus. The relatively large Hyperion is locked in an orbital resonance with Titan. Two other known regular satellites orbit within gaps in Saturn's rings. They include the seven major satellites, four small moons that exist in a trojan orbit with larger moons, two mutually co-orbital moons, and two moons that act as shepherds of Saturn's narrow F Ring. Of the known moons, 24 are regular satellites they have prograde orbits not greatly inclined to Saturn's equatorial plane. Iapetus has contrasting black and white hemispheres as well as an extensive ridge of equatorial mountains among the tallest in the solar system. Enceladus emits jets of ice from its south-polar region and is covered in a deep layer of snow. Titan is the second- largest moon in the Solar System (after Jupiter's Ganymede), with a nitrogen-rich Earth-like atmosphere and a landscape featuring river networks and hydrocarbon lakes. Seven Saturnian moons are large enough to have collapsed into a relaxed, ellipsoidal shape, though only one or two of those, Titan and possibly Rhea, are currently in hydrostatic equilibrium. This number does not include the many thousands of moonlets embedded within its dense rings, nor hundreds of possible kilometer-sized distant moons that were seen through telescopes but not recaptured.

There are 146 moons with confirmed orbits. 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. Shown in the image are Dione, Enceladus, Epimetheus, Prometheus, Mimas, Rhea, Janus, Tethys and Titan.

An annotated picture of Saturn's many moons captured by the Cassini spacecraft.