Paaliaq 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,

Brett J. Gladman Brett James Gladman (born April 19, 1966) is a Canadian astronomer and a full professor at the University of British Columbia's Department of Physics and Astronomy in Vancouver, British Columbia. He holds the Canada Research Chair in planetary ...

Jean-Marc Petit This is a list of minor-planet discoverers credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of one or several minor planets (such as near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans and distant objects). , the discovery of 612,011 numb ...

Hans Scholl Hans Fritz Scholl (; 22 September 1918 – 22 February 1943) was, along with Alexander Schmorell, one of the two founding members of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. The principal author of the resistance movement's ...

Matthew J. Holman Matthew J. Holman (born 1967) is a Smithsonian astrophysicist and lecturer at Harvard University. Holman studied at MIT, where he received his bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1989 and his PhD in planetary science in 1994. He was awarded t ...

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). ...

Philip D. Nicholson Philip D. Nicholson (born 1951) is an Australian-born professor of astronomy at Cornell University in the Astronomy department specialising in Planetary Sciences. He has been editor-in-chief of the journal ''Icarus'' since 1998. Career Nichol ...

and

Joseph A. Burns Joseph Burns is a professor at Cornell University with a dual appointment in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) and the Astronomy department. His primary area of research is dynamics in planetary sciences. Professiona ...

in early October 2000, and given the temporary designation S/2000 S 2. It was named in August 2003 after a fictional shaman in the book ''The Curse of the Shaman,'' written by Michael Kusugak, who supplied Kavelaars with the names of giants from

Inuit mythology Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous people from Alaska, northern Canada, parts of Siberia and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with some Al ...

that were used for other Saturnian moons. Paaliaq is thought to be about 22 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 15.2 million km in 687 days. It is a member of the

Inuit group The Inuit group is a dynamical grouping of the prograde irregular satellites of Saturn which follow similar orbits. Their semi-major axes range between 11 and 18 Gm, their inclinations between 40° and 50°, and their eccentricities betwee ...

of irregular satellites. It also has a proximity with 9 other moons reaching up to ten miles from each. It is light red in color, and in the

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

the Paaliapian (Paaliaqan)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 a ...

form of ''Paaliaq'' is ''Paaliap''. Thus the adjectival form could be absolutive ''Paaliaqian'' or genitive ''Paaliapian'', parallel to nominative ''Venusian'' and genitive ''Venerian'' for Venus. Se
Inuktitut morphology
/ref> spectrum is very similar to the Inuit-group satellites

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 ...

and

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 ...

, supporting the thesis of a possible common origin of the Inuit group in the break-up of a larger body.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 Its

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 ...

has an unusual pattern of four minima, suggesting that it has a very peculiar shape. Paaliaq-CFHT

References

*Ephemeri
IAU-MPC NSES
h1>

External links

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