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In the Aegaeon Sea... (GIF-Movie; creditgs: Elisabetta Bonora - Lunexit Team)
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Aegaeon, OR also Saturn LIII (being its provisional designation S/2008-S-1), is one of the very many moons of Saturn.
Its discovery was first announced by Dr Carolyn Porco, of the Cassini Imaging Science Team, on March 3, 2009, from observations taken on August, 15, 2008.
Aegaeon orbits within the bright segment of Saturn's G-Ring, and is likely a major source of the Ring itself. Debris knocked off the moon form a bright Arc near the Inner Edge of the G-Ring, which in turn spreads to form the rest of the Ring.
Aegaeon is "trapped" in the 7:6 co-rotation Eccentricity Resonance with Mimas. Aegaeon, Anthe and Methone therefore form a distinctive class of objects in the Saturn System: small moons in co-rotation Eccentricity Resonances with Mimas associated with (bright) "Arcs of Debris". Comparisons among these different Ring-Arc Systems reveal that Aegaeon’s orbit is closer to the exact Resonance than Anthe’s and Methone’s orbits are.
This could indicate that Aegaeon has undergone significant orbital evolution via its interactions with the other objects in its Arc's Segmet, which would be consistent with the evidence that Aegaeon’s mass is much smaller relative to the total mass in its Arc than Anthe’s and Methone’s masses are.
Assuming that Aegaeon has the same albedo as Pallene, his size is estimated to be about half a kilometer (approx. 500 mt) in diameter.
Aegaeon orbits Saturn at an average distance of about 167.500 Km from the Parent Planet (top of the Saturnian Clouds), in 0,80812 days (a little more than 19 hours), at an inclination of 0,001° to Saturn's Equator (being his Orbital Eccentricty equal to, 0,0002 - remember that the so-named "Mean Eccentricity" of an object is its Average Eccentricity, as resulting of perturbations over a given time period).
It is named after Aegaeon, one of the so-called "Hecatonchires" (Greek or "Centimani", in Latin). The Hecatonchires were 3 giants of incredible strength and ferocity, even superior to that of the Titans whom they helped overthrow.
Their name derives from the Greek words "hekaton" ---> "hundred" and "kheir" ---> "hand", and each one of them had a hundred hands and fifty heads.
Hesiod's Theogony (624, 639, 714, 734–35) reports that the 3 Hecatonchires became the guards of the gates of Tartarus (in Greek Mithology, it is a deep, gloomy place - a pit, or an abyss - used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the underworld).
In other words: an Hell deeper and darker than the "Traditional" Hell...
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