Thiazzi (Saturn LXIII), provisionally known as S/2004 S 33, is a

natural satellite A natural satellite is, in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body (or sometimes another natural satellite). Natural satellites are colloquially referred to as moons, a deriv ...

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

. Its discovery was announced by Scott S. Sheppard,

David C. Jewitt David Clifford Jewitt (born 1958) is a British-American astronomer who studies the Solar System, especially its minor bodies. He is based at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is a Member of the Institute for Geophysics and Pla ...

, and

Jan Kleyna Jan T. Kleyna is a postdoctoral astronomy researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi The University of Hawaiʻi System is a public college and university system in Hawaii. The system confers associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degre ...

on October 8, 2019 from observations taken between December 12, 2004 and March 22, 2007. It was given its permanent designation in August 2021. On 24 August 2022, it was officially named after

Þjazi In Norse mythology, Þjazi (Old Norse: ; anglicized as Thiazi, Thiazzi, Thjazi, Tjasse or Thiassi) was a jötunn. He was a son of the jötunn Ölvaldi, brother of Iði and Gangr, and the father of Skaði. His most notable misdeed was the kid ...

, a

jötunn A (also jotun; plural ; in the normalised scholarly spelling of Old Norse, ; or, in Old English, , plural ) is a type of being in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, are often contrasted with gods (the Æsir and Vanir) and with other no ...

from

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

. He is a son of

Alvaldi Alvaldi (also Ölvaldi; Old Norse 'all-powerful') is a jötunn in Norse mythology, presented as the father of Þjazi. Saturn's moon Alvaldi is named after him. Name The Old Norse name ''Alvadi'' means 'all-powerful'. The name ''Ölvadi'', f ...

and kidnapped the goddess

Iðunn In Norse mythology, Iðunn is a goddess associated with apples and youth. Iðunn is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the ''Prose Edda'', written in the 13th century by Snorri S ...

, who guarded the apples of the gods. Thiazzi is about 4 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 24.168 Gm in 1403.18 days, at an inclination of 160° to the ecliptic, in a retrograde direction and with an eccentricity of 0.399.

References

Norse group Irregular satellites Moons of Saturn Discoveries by Scott S. Sheppard Astronomical objects discovered in 2019 Moons with a retrograde orbit {{Saturn-stub