Suttungr , or Saturn XXIII, 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'' ...

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

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 as ...

, et al. in 2000, and given the temporary designation S/2000 S 12. It was named for

Suttungr In Norse mythology, Suttungr ( ; Old Norse: ) was a ''jötunn'' and the son of Gilling. Mythology Suttungr searched for his parents and threatened the dwarven brothers Fjalar and Galar who had killed them, tying them and some other dwarves wh ...

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...

, a

Jötunn A (also jotun; in the normalised scholarly spelling of Old Norse, ; ; plural / ) or, in Old English, (plural ) is a type of supernatural being in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, they are often contrasted with gods (Æsir and Vanir) ...

or giant who once owned the

mead Mead () is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, and sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The alcoholic content ranges from about 3.5% ABV to more than 20%. The defining character ...

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

. Suttungr is about 7 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 19,667 Mm in 1029.703 days. It may have formed from debris knocked off Phoebe. The Suttung orbit is retrograde, 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 Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

of 174° 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 again ...

(151° to Saturn's equator) 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-center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...

of 0.131. Its rotation period is hours, and like Albiorix 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 ...

exhibits two minima at certain angles, and three minima at others. Having a similar gray color and orbit as Thrymr, the two moons may be members of the same dynamical family. Its name was announced in its oblique form Suttung i
IAU Circular 8177
However, the

IAU The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach ...

Working Group on Planetary System Nomenclature later decided to add the

nominative In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...

suffix ''-r'' to the base form ''Suttung''.

References

IAUC 7548: ''S/2000 S 12''
December 23, 2000 (discovery)

December 22, 2000 (recovery/discovery and ephemeris)

August 8, 2003 (naming the moon ''Suttung'')

January 21, 2005 (correcting the name)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suttungr (Moon) Norse group Moons of Saturn Irregular satellites Discoveries by Brett J. Gladman Astronomical objects discovered in 2000 Moons with a retrograde orbit