Telesto is a

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

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

Smith Smith may refer to: People * Metalsmith, or simply smith, a craftsman fashioning tools or works of art out of various metals * Smith (given name) * Smith (surname), a family name originating in England, Scotland and Ireland ** List of people wit ...

, Reitsema, Larson and

Fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. Fountains were or ...

in 1980 from ground-based observations, and was provisionally designated . In the following months, several other apparitions were observed: , , and . In 1983 it was officially named after Telesto of

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of de ...

. It is also designated as or Tethys B. Telesto is co-orbital with Tethys, residing in Tethys' leading

Lagrangian point In celestial mechanics, the Lagrange points (; also Lagrangian points or libration points) are points of equilibrium for small-mass objects under the influence of two massive orbiting bodies. Mathematically, this involves the solution of ...

(). This relationship was first identified by Seidelmann ''et al.'' in 1981. Another moon, Calypso, resides in the other (trailing) Lagrangian point of Tethys, 60 degrees in the other direction from Tethys. The Saturnian system has two additional

trojan moon In astronomy, a co-orbital configuration is a configuration of two or more astronomical objects (such as asteroids, moons, or planets) orbiting at the same, or very similar, distance from their primary, i.e. they are in a 1:1 mean-motion resonance ...

Exploration

The '' Cassini'' probe performed a distant flyby of Telesto on October 11, 2005. The resulting images show that its surface is surprisingly smooth, devoid of small

impact crater An impact crater is a circular depression (geology), depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity collision, impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or in ...

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Citations

References

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External links

NASA - Telesto Profile

NASA's Solar System Exploration

{{DEFAULTSORT:Telesto (Moon) Moons of Saturn Trojan moons 19800408 Moons with a prograde orbit