Skoll or Saturn XLVII (provisional designation S/2006 S 8) is a
retrograde irregular satellite 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 nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
. 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 Pl ...
and
Jan Kleyna on 26 June 2006 from observations taken between 5 January and 30 April 2006.
Skoll is about 6 kilometres in diameter (assuming an
albedo of 0.04) and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 17.6
Gm (million km) in 869 days, following a highly
eccentric
Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to:
* Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal"
Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics
* Off-center, in geometry
* Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...
and moderately
inclined
Incline, inclined, inclining, or inclination may refer to:
*Grade (slope), the tilt, steepness, or angle from horizontal of a topographic feature (hillside, meadow, etc.) or constructed element (road, railway, field, etc.)
*Slope, the tilt, steepn ...
orbit.
A rotation period of was obtained by ''
Cassini–Huygens
''Cassini–Huygens'' ( ), commonly called ''Cassini'', was a space research, space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, i ...
'' in 2016, but this is in strong disagreement with 2013 data for unknown reasons; one possible explanation is variation in the rotation speed and axis due to
Milankovitch wobble.
It was named in April 2007
after
Sköll, a giant wolf 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, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...
, son of
Fenrir and twin brother of
Hati.
References
MPC: Natural Satellites Ephemeris Service*Mean orbital parameter
from NASA JPL
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Skoll (Moon)
Norse group
Moons of Saturn
Irregular satellites
Discoveries by Scott S. Sheppard
Astronomical objects discovered in 2006
Moons with a retrograde orbit