Monday, February 10, 2014

Saturn has a moon named Erriapus


Saturn has a LOT of moons -- most of them not very big at all.  It's also got Titan, the moon with a strange atmosphere, the two-color moon Iapetus, and the Death Star moon, Mimas.

But if you look around, you can find a list of all the moons, and that's where I noticed Erriapus.

Here's a page about the lesser Saturn moons:
Outer Saturnian moons

According to the table on that page, Erriapus has a mean diameter of about 10 km.  Not big as moons go.   There's a little animated GIF on the page that shows the little dot of light that is Erriapus. 

The astronomers ran out of mythological Roman and Greek gods, demi-gods, and semi-gods, so they'e been using the names of the gods and mythical creatures of other cultures.  In this case, Erriapus is just a big giant in the tales of the Gauls.  There apparently aren't any pictures of him on the Internet, either.




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