Discovery of Albiorix

Albiorix is one of the irregular outer moons of Saturn, found by a team of astronomers led by Matthew Holman using ground-based telescopes. It orbits Saturn at a great distance, travelling in the same direction as the planet's rotation, and it is the largest member of a group called the Gallic group, whose moons share similar orbits and may be fragments of one larger body broken apart long ago. Irregular moons like it are thought to have been captured by Saturn rather than formed with it. It is named after a Gaulish deity linked with the Roman god Mars, in keeping with the convention for naming this group of moons. It is a dark, reddish object, too faint to see without a large telescope.

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