Does Tethys have moons?

Does Tethys have moons?

Tethys has gravitationally locked two smaller moons into its own subsystem — Telesto and Calypso. These smaller moons are held in Lagrangian points (L4 and L5, respectively), where objects are stable with the larger controlling body.

What is Tethys moon made of?

Although Herschel didn’t realize it at the time, a watery goddess made an ideal name for the moon. Like many of the satellites around Saturn, Tethys is made up almost entirely of water-ice. At average temperatures of minus 187 degrees C (minus 305 degrees F), the ice on the lunar surface responds much like rock.

How did Tethys moon form?

Tethys is thought to have formed from an accretion disc or subnebula; a disc of gas and dust that existed around Saturn for some time after its formation. The low temperature at the position of Saturn in the Solar nebular means that water ice was the primary solid from which all moons formed.

What is the largest moon of Saturn?

Titan
Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is an icy world whose surface is completely obscured by a golden hazy atmosphere. Titan is the second largest moon in our solar system. Only Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is larger, by just 2 percent. Titan is bigger than Earth’s moon, and larger than even the planet Mercury.

What is Tethys the Goddess of?

freshwater
Tethys was the Greek goddess of freshwater who bore six thousand children to her husband Oceanus. Those children became the rulers of all rivers, streams, lakes, and rain clouds.

What does Tethys mean?

Tethysnoun. (Greek mythology) a Titaness and sea goddess; wife of Oceanus.

Is Titan bigger than Earth?

It is also about 1.19 times as massive as Earth’s overall, or about 7.3 times more massive on a per surface area basis. Opaque haze layers block most visible light from the Sun and other sources and obscure Titan’s surface features. Titan’s lower gravity means that its atmosphere is far more extended than Earth’s.

Is Tethys a god or goddess?

Tethys was the Greek goddess of freshwater who bore six thousand children to her husband Oceanus. Those children became the rulers of all rivers, streams, lakes, and rain clouds. She was also a devoted mentor and caretaker of Hera who would become Zeus’s wife, and the grandmother of the popular goddess Athena.

How big is Tethys compared to the other Saturn moons?

Overview Tethys is Saturn’s fifth largest moon. Its irregular shape is 331 miles (533 kilometers) in mean radius, with dimensions 669 x 657 x 654 miles (1076.8 x 1057.4 x 1052.6 kilometers). This cold, airless and heavily scarred body is very similar to sister moons Dione and Rhea except that Tethys is not as heavily cratered as the other two.

What are the names of the two moons that orbit Tethys?

Tethys has two co-orbital moons, Telesto and Calypso, which orbit near Tethys’s Lagrange Points. Diameter comparison of the Saturnian moon Tethys, Moon, and Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS/Tom Reding

Is the moon Tethys made of water or ice?

Since water is 1 g/cm 3, this means that Tethys is comprised almost entirely of water ice. In essence, if the moon were brought closer to the Sun, the vast majority of the moon would sublimate and evaporate away. It is not currently known whether Tethys is differentiated into a rocky core and ice mantle.

How big is Tethys compared to the Earth?

With a mean radius of 531.1 ± 0.6 km and a mass of 6.1745 ×1020 kg, Tethys is equivalent in size to 0.083 Earths and 0.000103 times as massive. Its size and mass also mean that it is the 16th-largest moon in the Solar System, and more massive than all known moons smaller than itself combined.