Chiron (Greek: Χείρων) is the name given to a supposed moon of Saturn sighted by Hermann Goldschmidt in 1861. It has since been determined that no such moon exists.
Hermann Goldschmidt announced the discovery of the ninth moon of Saturn in April 1861, which, he said, orbited between Titan and Hyperion. Goldschmidt's discovery was never confirmed, and Chiron was never observed again.
In 1898, William Henry Pickering discovered Phoebe, [1] which is now considered the ninth moon of Saturn. [2] Strangely, in 1905, Pickering believed that he had discovered another moon of Saturn, which, he reported, orbited the planet between Titan and Hyperion. He called this new moon Themis. Themis, like Chiron, was never sighted again.
An object, now classified as a centaur, which was discovered in 1977, is named 2060 Chiron. [3] [4]
See also
References
- ^ "What Happened on March 18, 1899". OnThisDay.com. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
- ^ "Saturn - Moons". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
- ^ Kowal, Charles T.; Liller, William; Marsden, Brian G. (December 1978). "The discovery and orbit of /2060/ Chiron". In: Dynamics of the Solar System; Proceedings of the Symposium, Tokyo, Japan, May 23–26, 1978. 81: 245–250. Bibcode: 1979IAUS...81..245K.
- ^ "Chiron Fact Sheet". NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. 20 August 2014.
External links
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