Anthe is a very small

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 ...

lying between the orbits of

Mimas Mimas may refer to: *Mimas (Giant), son of Gaia in Greek mythology, one of the Gigantes * Mimas (''Aeneid''), a son of Amycus and Theono, born the same night as Paris, who escorted Aeneas to Italy *Karaburun, a town and district in Turkey, formerl ...

and

Enceladus Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn (19th largest in the Solar System). It is about in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most refl ...

. It is also known as Saturn XLIX; its provisional designation was S/2007 S 4. It is named after one of the

Alkyonides The Alcyonides (, ''Alkyonides'') were, in Greek mythology, the seven daughters of the giant Alcyoneus. Names These sisters were identified individually as, Alkippe, Anthe, Asteria, Drimo, Methone, Pallene and Phthonia ( Phosthonia or Cht ...

; the name means ''flowery''. It is the sixtieth confirmed moon of Saturn. It was discovered by the Cassini Imaging Team in images taken on 30 May 2007. Once the discovery was made, a search of older '' Cassini'' images revealed it in observations from as far back as June 2004. It was first announced on 18 July 2007. S2007 S 4 PIA08369

Anthe is visibly affected by a perturbing 10:11 mean-longitude

resonance Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of an applied periodic force (or a Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system on which it acts. When an oscillatin ...

with the much larger Mimas. This causes its

osculating orbit In astronomy, and in particular in astrodynamics, the osculating orbit of an object in space at a given moment in time is the gravitational Kepler orbit (i.e. an elliptic or other conic one) that it would have around its central body if perturba ...

al elements to vary with an amplitude of about 20 km in semi-major axis on a timescale of about 2 Earth years. The close proximity to the orbits of Pallene and Methone suggests that these moons may form a dynamical family. Material blasted off Anthe by

micrometeoroid A micrometeoroid is a tiny meteoroid: a small particle of rock in space, usually weighing less than a gram. A micrometeorite is such a particle that survives passage through Earth's atmosphere and reaches Earth's surface. The term "micrometeoroid ...

impacts is thought to be the source of the Anthe Ring Arc, a faint partial ring about Saturn co-orbital with the moon first detected in June 2007.

References

;Notes ;Citations ;Sources * * * * *

External links

''From Dark Obscurity... A Tiny New Saturnian Moon Comes To Light''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anthe (Moon) Moons of Saturn 20070530 Moons with a prograde orbit