Key facts
- Category
- Moons
- Object class
- Small inner moon
- Composition
- Low-density water ice and regolith
Methone
3.88 kmmaximum extent
3.88km
Visual creditCassini 2012 / NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute / Public domainSource: Wikimedia Commons
Details
Methone is a tiny, egg-shaped moon of Saturn with an unusually smooth surface. It orbits between Mimas and Enceladus and shares its orbit with a faint arc of ring material.
Cassini resolved Methone as a smooth, oblong moon only a few kilometers long. It circles Saturn once every 24 hours between Mimas and Enceladus, while a faint arc of material occupies the same orbital region. Close images from May 2012 showed almost no craters on its surface.
Links
- Universe journey
- Asteroid belt & Jupiter
- Wikipedia
- Methone on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near Methone on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, Methone falls between 103P/Hartley 2 and 4179 Toutatis. Compared below with other objects classed as Small inner moon.
Sources
References for Methone
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, write to hello@scaleofspace.org.
- Methone on Wikipedia
- Visual reference: Wikimedia Commons (Cassini 2012 / NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute, Public domain)
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.