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Epimetheus

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Epimetheus
Related Category: Astronomy: General
in astronomy, one of the 18 named moons, or natural satellites, of Saturn.

 


Epimetheus
Saturn XI
Epimetheus ( "ep eh MEE thee us" ) is the fifth of Saturn's known satellites: orbit: 151,422 km from Saturn diameter: 115 km (144 x 108 x 98) mass: 5.6e17 kg ...

Epimetheus (moon)
There is also an asteroid called 1810 Epimetheus.Epimetheus ...

Epimetheus
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Epimetheus [ep-eh-MEE-thee-us] is the fifth satellite of Saturn. It was discovered by R. Walker in 1980. Epimetheus was the son of Iapetus and brother to Prometheus and Atlas. Epimetheus means hindsight in Greek.

Epimetheus is the fifth moon from Saturn's Surface. It was discovered by Walker, Fountain and Larson first in 1966, and then again in 1977. In 1966 it was confused with Janus, another of Saturn's moons. Epimetheus and Janus are very interesting moons.

Epimetheus
Discovered: R. Walker/1966 and J. Fountain, S. Larson/1978
Distance from Saturn: 151,422km ...

EPIMETHEUS
Epimetheus is one of the 18 moons of Saturn. This moon is covered by grooves, valleys, and craters over 30 km in diameter. Epimetheus orbits at a mean distance of about 151,422 km and revolves around Saturn in about 4 hours.

Epimetheus
1966
J. Fountain, S. Larson
(Confirmed in 1980 by D. Cruikshank) ...

Epimetheus and Janus, satellites of Saturn, have a similar relationship, though they are of similar masses and so actually exchange orbits with each other periodically.

Epimetheus (moon)
'Epimetheus' is an inner satellite of Saturn . It is also known as 'Saturn XI'. It is named after the mythological Epimetheus , brother of Prometheus....
and Janus
Janus (moon) ...

Next come Epimetheus (left) and Janus (right). Scientists think that these two moons were once part of a single moon that was later blasted apart. This claim is supported by the fact that their orbits are within thirty miles of each other.

Janus and Epimetheus switch orbits every few years, alternating which is closer to Saturn.
Atlas, Pan, Pandora, Prometheus and others are shepherd moons that herd particles orbiting Saturn into rings.

2,9. Janus and Epimetheus are 'coorbital' and undergo orbit changes at approximately 4 year intervals.
Janus
151,460 ...

Epimetheus (NASA Thesaurus) A natural satellite of Saturn, orbiting at a mean distance of 151,422 kilometers..

Just 10,000 km beyond the F ring lie the so-called co-orbital satellites Janus and Epimetheus. As the name implies, these two satellites "share" an orbit, but in a very strange way.

The co-orbital satellites Janus and Epimetheus (S10 and S11) share the same average orbit, interacting with each other every few years in such a way that one transmits angular momentum to the other, ...

The third image pair shows Epimetheus, as a tiny dot just beyond the tip of the F Ring. Prometheus is in the lower right corner. An elongated clump or arc of debris in the F ring is seen as a slight brightening on the far side of this thin ring.

Some of the names are possibly familiar to you - Pan, Daphnis, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Methone, Pallene, Enceladus, Tethys, Telesto, Calypso, Dione, Helene, Polydeuces, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus, Kiviuq, Ijiraq, ...

Iapetus -- In Greek mythology, a son of Uranus and Gaea. Father of Atlas, Epimetheus, Menoetius, and Prometheus.
Ida -- In Greek mythology, the mountain on Crete where Zeus spent his childhood.
igneous rock -- Rock solidified from a molten state.

Saturn's known moons are (from nearest to furthest from the planet): Pan, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus, Janus, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Telesto, Calypso, Dione, Helene, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Phoebe.

Titan, enveloped in a thick orange smog, is seen here by the Cassini orbiter in October 2007, with Saturn's rings and small moon Epimetheus in the foreground. Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

In the September event Cassini imaged a tenuous new ring, outside the main rings but inside the fainter G and E rings. It coincides with the orbit of the small moons Janus and Epimetheus.

Visible outside the brighter main rings of Saturn and inside the G and E rings, it coincides with the orbits of Saturn's moons Janus and Epimetheus (more discussion and images available from NASA's news release).

A few years later it was realized that all observations of 1966 could only be explained if another satellite had been present and that it had an orbit similar to that of Janus. This object is now known as Epimetheus, the eleventh moon of Saturn.

During the four-year Saturn Tour, Cassini will complete 74 orbits of the ringed planet, 44 close flybys of the moon Titan, and numerous flybys of Saturn's other moons Dione, Iapetus, Enceladus, Mimas, Tethys, Hyperion, Rhea, and Epimetheus.

See also: Saturn, Earth, Janus, Orbit, Planet