Key facts
- Discovered by
- Scott S. Sheppard , David C. Jewitt , Jan T. Kleyna , Brian G. Marsden
- Discovery date
- December 2004
- Designation
- Saturn XLII
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ f ɔːr n j oʊ t / , Icelandic: [ ˈfɔ(r)tnˌjouːt ]
- Named after
- Fornjót
- Alternative names
- S/2004 S 8
- Semi major axis
- 25 108 000 km
- Orbital period sidereal
- −1490.9 days
- Inclination
- 170.4°
- Satellite of
- Saturn
- Group
- Norse group
- Mean diameter
- 6 +50%, −30% km
- Synodic rotation period
- (6.9 or 9.5) ± 0.4? h
- Albedo
- 0.06 (assumed)
- Spectral type
- r – i = 0.20 ± 0.09
via Wikipedia infobox
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Fornjot /ˈfɔːrnjoʊt/ or Saturn XLII is the outermost named moon of Saturn. Its discovery was announced by Scott S. Sheppard, David C. Jewitt, Jan Kleyna, and Brian G. Marsden on 4 May 2005 from observations taken between 12 December 2004, and 11 March 2005. It had the largest semi-major axis among all the known moons of Saturn until the recovery of Saturn LVIII in 2019.
It is about 6 kilometres in diameter, and it orbits Saturn at an average distance of 23,609 Mm in 1491 d at an inclination of 168° to the ecliptic (160° to Saturn's equator) in a retrograde direction and with an eccentricity of 0.186. It is ambiguous whether the rotation period is 6.9 or 9.5±0.4 hours, but it is known to show very little variation in brightness and is probably very round in shape. It was also the faintest moon that was measured by Cassini–Huygens.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Fornjot” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.