Tethys (moon) facts for kids

Photo taken by Cassini-Huygens.

Tethys (pronounced TEE-this) is a large moon of the planet Saturn.

Discovery

It was discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1684. It was one of the first Saturnian moons discovered.

Physical characteristics

Mass, density and volume

Tethys' mass is 617,551,805,221,061,000,000 kg, its density is 0.973 g/cm³ and its volume is 634,264,255 km³.

Craters and valleys

It has a very large crater on its surface, called Odysseus. It is named after a Greek warrior king in Homer's two great works, The Iliad and The Odyssey. There is also a very long valley called Ithaca Chasma. It is 100 km wide and 2000 km long.

Orbit and rotation

Tethys takes 45.3 hours to orbit (go around) Saturn and orbits Saturn 294,660 km away. Tethys is tidally locked in phase with its parent planet - one side always faces toward Saturn.

Images for kids

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  Tethys basemap (trailing hemisphere on the right)

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  Size comparison of Earth, the Moon, and Tethys.

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  Tethys viewed by Cassini (11 April 2015).

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  Tethys – Red Arcs (11 April 2015)

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  Cassini view of Tethys's Saturn-facing hemisphere, showing the giant rift Ithaca Chasma, crater Telemachus at top, and smooth plains at right

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  Huge, shallow crater Odysseus, with its uplifted central complex, the Scheria Montes, is at the top of this image.

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  Tethys (lower right) near Saturn and its rings

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  Animation of Tethys's rotation

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  Tethys near Saturn (11 April 2015).

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  The quadrangles of Tethys

See also

In Spanish: Tetis (satélite) para niños