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    Pan

    The innermost of the moons of Saturn. It was discovered on July 16, 1990 by Mark Showalter from old Voyager 2 data and is also known as Saturn XVIII. Walnut-shaped Pan lies within the Encke division (325 km, or 200 miles wide) of Saturn's A-ring and is a shepherd moon responsible for keeping the Encke division open.

    Pan
    The movie clip shown here was made from 40 images taken by the Cassini spacecraft on April 29, 2006, at a distance of approximately 209,000 km (130,000 miles) from Pan. The image scale is approximately 1 km (0.6 mile) per pixel. The movie begins with Pan and the rings against the night side of Saturn. Cassini stays fixed on Pan as the moon heads toward the outside edge of the Encke division. Saturn's dark shadow is seen stretching across the middle of the ringplane. Midway through the sequence, the far side of the rings emerges from behind the planet, but eventually is completely darkened by Saturn's shadow. (The small, bright moving object that appears from the lower left, near the end of the sequence, is a bright background star.)


    Discovery 1990, M. R. Showalter from Voyager 2 images
    Semimajor axis 133,584 km (82,956 miles)
    Diameter 35 × 35 × 23 km (22 × 22 × 14 miles)
    Orbital period 0.575 days (13 hr 48 min.)
    Orbital eccentricity 0.000035
    Orbital inclination 0.001°
    Visual albedo 0.5


    Related entry

       • Saturn, moons


    Related category

       • PLANETS AND MOONS



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