Jarnsaxa , also known as Saturn L (provisional designation S/2006 S 6), 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'' ...

of Saturn. 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 ...

Jan Kleyna Jan T. Kleyna is a postdoctoral astronomy researcher at the University of Hawai'i A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities t ...

, and

Brian G. Marsden Brian Geoffrey Marsden (5 August 1937 – 18 November 2010) was a British astronomer and the longtime director of the Minor Planet Center (MPC) at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (director emeritus from 2006 to 2010). ...

on June 26, 2006, from observations taken between January 5 and April 29, 2006. Jarnsaxa is about 6 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 18,556.9 Mm in 943.784 days, at an

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 Eart ...

of 162.9° to the

ecliptic The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic agains ...

(164.1° to Saturn's equator), in a retrograde direction and with an

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-Centre (geometry), center, in geometry * Eccentricity (g ...

of 0.1918. It is a member of the

Norse group The Norse group is a large group of retrograde irregular satellites of Saturn. Their semi-major axes range between 12 and 24 Gm, their inclinations between 136° and 175° and their eccentricities between 0.13 and 0.77. Unlike for the Inuit ...

of irregular satellites. It is named after

Járnsaxa Járnsaxa (; Old Norse: , "iron dagger") is a jötunn in Norse mythology. In Snorri Sturluson's ''Prose Edda'', she is portrayed as Thor's lover and as the mother of Magni, a three-year-old boy with prodigious force. Name The Old Norse name ' ...

, a giantess in Norse mythology.

References

Institute for Astronomy Saturn Satellite Data

June 30, 2006 (discovery)

June 26, 2006 (discovery and ephemeris)

February 28, 2007 (recovery)

September 20, 2007 (naming) {{DEFAULTSORT:Jarnsaxa (Moon) Norse group Moons of Saturn Irregular satellites Discoveries by Scott S. Sheppard Astronomical objects discovered in 2006 Moons with a retrograde orbit