Kiviuq is a prograde

irregular satellite In astronomy, an irregular moon, irregular satellite or irregular natural satellite is a natural satellite following a distant, inclined, and often eccentric and retrograde orbit. They have been captured by their parent planet, unlike regular s ...

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 ...

. It was discovered by J. J. Kavelaars in 2000, and given the temporary designation S/2000 S 5. It was named after

Kiviuq Kiviuq (also spelled "Qiviuq", "Kiviok" and other variants) is a legendary hero of the epic stories of the Inuit of the Arctic regions of northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland. Kiviuq is an eternal Inuit wanderer. Spirits, giants, cannibals, bea ...

, a hero of

Inuit mythology Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, northern Canada, parts of Siberia and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with some Alaska Native religions. Traditional I ...

.IAUC 8177: ''Satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus''
August 8, 2003 (naming the moon) Kiviuq is about in diameter, and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 11.1 million kilometers in 450 days. It is a member of the

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...

group of irregular satellites. It is light red, and the Kiviupian (Kiviuqan)The

genitive In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...

form of ''Kiviuq'' is ''Kiviup''. Thus the adjectival form could be

absolutive In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative– ...

''Kiviuqian'' or genitive ''Kiviupian'', parallel to nominative ''Venusian'' and genitive ''Venerian'' for Venus. Se
Inuktitut morphology
/ref>

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

spectrum is very similar to the Inuit-group satellites

Siarnaq Siarnaq, also designated Saturn XXIX, is the second-largest irregular moon of Saturn. It was discovered on 23 September 2000 by a team of astronomers led by Brett J. Gladman. It was named after the Inuit goddess of the sea, Siarnaq, who is more ...

and

Paaliaq Paaliaq is a prograde irregular satellite of Saturn. It was discovered by J. J. Kavelaars, Brett J. Gladman, Jean-Marc Petit, Hans Scholl, Matthew J. Holman, Brian G. Marsden, Philip D. Nicholson and Joseph A. Burns in early October 2000, and gi ...

, supporting the thesis of a possible common origin of the Inuit group in the break-up of a larger body.Grav, T.; and Bauer, J.
''A deeper look at the colors of Saturnian irregular satellites''
/ref>Gladman, B. J.; Nicholson, P. D.; Burns, J. A.; Kavelaars, J. J.; Marsden, B. G.; Holman, M. J.; Grav, T.; Hergenrother, C. W.; Petit, J.-M.; Jacobson, R. A.; and Gray, W. J.
''Discovery of 12 satellites of Saturn exhibiting orbital clustering''
Nature, 412 (July 12. 2001), pp. 163–166 Kiviuq is believed to be in

Kozai resonance In celestial mechanics, the Kozai mechanism is a dynamical phenomenon affecting the orbit of a binary system perturbed by a distant third body under certain conditions. It is also known as the von Zeipel-Kozai-Lidov, Lidov–Kozai mechanism, Kozai ...

, cyclically reducing its

orbital inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Earth ...

while increasing the

eccentricity Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...

and vice versa. Ćuk, M.; and Burns, J. A.
''On the Secular Behavior of Irregular Satellites''
The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 128 (2004), pp. 2518–2541 Its current orbital elements overlap strongly with Phoebe's orbit, and the moons will likely eventually collide with each other. The

light curve In astronomy, a light curve is a graph of light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude of light received on the y axis and with time on the x axis. The light is usually in a particular frequ ...

amplitude The amplitude of a periodic variable is a measure of its change in a single period (such as time or spatial period). The amplitude of a non-periodic signal is its magnitude compared with a reference value. There are various definitions of amplit ...

of Kiviuq is large, varying in brightness by over 2

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

s. The large amplitude of Kiviuq suggests that it has an elongated shape, and may be a possible

contact binary In astronomy, a contact binary is a binary star system whose component stars are so close that they touch each other or have merged to share their gaseous envelopes. A binary system whose stars share an envelope may also be called an overconta ...

Exploration

On 30 August 2010, th
ISS camera
of the

Cassini–Huygens ''Cassini–Huygens'' ( ), commonly called ''Cassini'', was a space research, space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, i ...

spacecraft took light-curve data from a distance of 9.3 million km. With these data, the rotation period was measured to 21 hours and 49 minutes.

References

*Ephemeri
from IAU-MPC NSES

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kiviuq (Moon) Inuit group Moons of Saturn Irregular satellites Discoveries by Brett J. Gladman Astronomical objects discovered in 2000 Moons with a prograde orbit Discoveries by John J. Kavelaars