Discovery of Ymir

Ymir is an irregular moon of Saturn, the largest of the group known as the Norse group, whose members orbit Saturn in the opposite direction to the planet's rotation. It was discovered in a survey by a team of astronomers led by Brett Gladman using ground-based telescopes. These retrograde moons are thought to be fragments of a larger body that was captured by Saturn and then shattered in collisions. It is named after Ymir, the primordial giant of Norse mythology, from whose body the world was created. Ymir is dark and reddish, and about eighteen kilometres across. It is only visible through large telescopes.

Open on the timeline