Bestla or Saturn XXXIX is a retrograde irregular moon of Saturn. Its discovery was announced by Scott S. Sheppard, David C. Jewitt, Jan Kleyna, and Brian G. Marsden on 4 May 2005, from observations taken between 13 December 2004 and 5 March 2005.
Description
Bestla is about 7 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 20,192,000 km in 1088 days, at an inclination of 147° to the ecliptic (151° to Saturn's equator), in a retrograde direction and with an eccentricity of 0.5145. Early observations from 2005 suggested that Bestla had a very high eccentricity of 0.77. Like many of the outer irregular moons of the giant planets, Bestla's eccentricity may vary as a result of the Kozai mechanism. Bestla's rotation period is hours. Like Kiviuq, it is likely to be a contact binary or binary object, as its light curve has strong variation in brightness and a plateau-like maximum not seen in the other irregulars.
Name
This moon was named in April 2007 after Bestla, a frost giantess from Norse mythology, who is a mother of Odin.
References
External links
Saturn's Known Satellites (by Scott S. Sheppard) Jewitt's New Satellites of Saturn page IAUC 8523: New Satellites of Saturn May 4, 2005 (discovery) IAUC 8826: Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn April 5, 2007 (naming the moon) raw Images