Alvaldi (Saturn LXV), provisionally known as S/2004 S 35, is a

natural satellite A natural satellite is, in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body (or sometimes another natural satellite). Natural satellites are often colloquially referred to as ''moons'' ...

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 Scott Sander Sheppard (born 1977) is an American astronomer and a discoverer of numerous moons, comets and minor planets in the outer Solar System. He is an astronomer in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Scie ...

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 Jan T. Kleyna is a postdoctoral astronomy researcher at the University of Hawai'i Institute for Astronomy. His area of interest is galaxy dynamics, and he has worked to develop codes for the real-time detection of moving objects such as Jovian ...

on October 8, 2019 from observations taken between December 12, 2004 and February 25, 2006. It was given its permanent designation in August 2021. On 24 August 2022, it was officially named after

Alvaldi Alvaldi (also Ölvaldi; Old Norse 'all-powerful') is a jötunn in Norse mythology, presented as the father of Þjazi. Saturn's moon Alvaldi is named after him. Name The Old Norse name ''Alvadi'' means 'all-powerful'. The name ''Ölvadi'', fo ...

, a

jötunn A (also jotun; in the normalised scholarly spelling of Old Norse, ; ; plural / ) or, in Old English, (plural ) is a type of supernatural being in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, they are often contrasted with gods (Æsir and Vanir) ...

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 ...

. He was very rich in gold, and when he died his sons divided his inheritance by taking a mouthful each. Alvaldi is about 5 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 22.412 Gm in 1253.08 days, at an inclination of 177° to the ecliptic, in a retrograde direction and with an eccentricity of 0.194.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alvaldi (Moon) Norse group Irregular satellites Moons of Saturn Discoveries by Scott S. Sheppard Astronomical objects discovered in 2019 Moons with a retrograde orbit