Discovery of Kiviuq

Kiviuq is an irregular moon of Saturn, roughly sixteen kilometers across, discovered in 2000 by a team led by the Canadian astronomer Brett Gladman. It orbits Saturn in the same direction as the planet turns, at a distance of over eleven million kilometers, and is the namesake of the Inuit group of outer moons. Its distant, tilted orbit suggests that it was captured by Saturn long ago rather than forming with the planet, and it may be a fragment of a larger body broken up in collisions. It was named after Kiviuq, a heroic wanderer in the traditional stories of the Inuit.

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