what are the moons of saturn named after
Moons of Saturn The modern names for Saturnian moons were suggested by John Herschel in 1847.[13] He proposed to name them after mythological figures associated with the Roman god of agriculture and harvest, Saturn (equated to the Greek Cronus).[13] In particular, the then known seven satellites were named after Titans, Titanesses and Giantsâ€”brothers and sisters of Cronus.[16] In 1848, Lassell proposed that the eighth satellite of Saturn be named Hyperion after another Titan.[15] When in the 20th century the names of Titans were exhausted, the moons were named after different characters of the Greco-Roman mythology or giants from other mythologies.[33] All the irregular moons (except Phoebe) are named after Inuit and Gallic gods and after Norse ice giants.[34]
Cassini–Huygens Launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur on October 15, 1997, Cassini was active in space for nearly 20 years, with 13 years spent orbiting Saturn, studying the planet and its system after entering orbit on July 1, 2004.[8] The voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (April 1998 and July 1999), Earth (August 1999), the asteroid 2685 Masursky, and Jupiter (December 2000). Its mission ended on September 15, 2017, when Cassini's trajectory took it into Saturn's upper atmosphere and it burned up[9][10] in order to prevent any risk of contaminating Saturn's moons, which might have offered habitable environments to stowaway terrestrial microbes on the spacecraft.[11][12] The mission is widely perceived to have been successful beyond expectation. Cassini-Huygens has been described by NASA's Planetary Science Division Director as a "mission of firsts",[13] that has revolutionized human understanding of the Saturn system, including its moons and rings, and our understanding of where life might be found in the Solar System.