The

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

group is a dynamical grouping of the prograde

irregular satellite In astronomy, an irregular moon, irregular satellite, or irregular natural satellite is a natural satellite following an orbit that is irregular in some of the following ways: Distant; inclined; highly elliptical; retrograde. They have often be ...

s of

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 ...

which follow similar

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit (also known as orbital revolution) is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an ...

s. Their semi-major axes range between 11 and 19 Gm, their

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

s between 45° and 50°, and their eccentricities between 0.11 and 0.39. They take an average of 2 years to orbit Saturn. The

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...

(IAU) uses names taken from

Inuit mythology Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous people from Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, and parts of Siberia. Their religion shares many similarities with some A ...

for these moons. The group appeared quite homogeneous in early observations, the satellites displaying ''light-red'' colour (

colour indices In astronomy, the color index is a simple numerical expression that determines the color of an object, which in the case of a star gives its temperature. The lower the color index, the more blue (or hotter) the object is. Conversely, the larg ...

B−V = 0.79 and V−R = 0.51, similar to that of the

Gallic group The Gallic group is a dynamical grouping of the prograde irregular satellites of Saturn following similar orbits. Their semi-major axes range between 16 and 19 Gm, their inclinations between 36° and 41°, and their eccentricities between 0.4 ...

) and similar infrared spectra. Recent observations, however, revealed that

Ijiraq In the Inuit religion, an ijiraq ( or ) is a shapeshifting creature said to kidnap children, hide them away and abandon them. The inuksuk (or inukshuk) of stone allow these children to find their way back if they can convince the ijiraq to let ...

is distinctly redder than

Paaliaq Paaliaq is a prograde irregular satellite of Saturn. It was discovered by J. J. Kavelaars, Brett J. Gladman, Jean-Marc Petit, Hans Scholl, Matthew J. Holman, Brian G. Marsden, Philip D. Nicholson and Joseph A. Burns in early October 2000, a ...

Siarnaq Siarnaq, also designated Saturn XXIX, is the second-largest irregular moon of Saturn. It was discovered on 23 September 2000 by a team of astronomers led by Brett J. Gladman. It was named after the Inuit goddess of the sea, Siarnaq, who is mor ...

and

Kiviuq Kiviuq (), also spelled Qiviuq, Kiviok and other variants, is a legendary hero of the epic stories of the Inuit of the Arctic regions of northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland. Versions of his adventures vary with the location and the storyteller. ...

. In addition, unlike the other three, Ijiraq's spectrum does not display weak absorption near 0.7 μm. This feature is attributed to a possible

water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

hydration. The

spectral ''Spectral'' is a 2016 Hungarian-American military science fiction action film co-written and directed by Nic Mathieu. Written with Ian Fried & George Nolfi, the film stars James Badge Dale as DARPA research scientist Mark Clyne, with Max Marti ...

homogeneity (with the exception of Ijiraq) is consistent with a common origin in the break-up of a single object but the dispersion of the orbital parameters requires further explanation. Recently reported secular resonances among the members could provide the explanation of the post-collisional dispersion.

Names

The thirty six known members of the Inuit group are (sorted by distance from Saturn in their respective subgroups):

References

External links

Mean orbital parameters
from JPL
{{DEFAULTSORT:Inuit Group Inuit group Moons of Saturn Irregular satellites Moons with a prograde orbit

Names

See also

References

External links