Thursday 15 December 2016

Astrognome Scrapbook Janus

Janus

On December 15th 1966 the small moon Janus was discovered orbiting Saturn. The discovery was made by the French astronomer Audouin Charles Dollfus. Janus is named after the god of gates and doorways.



It is a potato shaped moon with dimensions of 122 x 119 x 93 miles (196 x 192 x 150 km).

Janus orbits 94,000 miles (151,000 km) away from Saturn, taking 17 hours to complete one orbit of Saturn.



 It shares the same orbit as the small moon Epimetheus and are separated only by about  31 miles (50 Km).




No comments:

Post a Comment