Saturn is a fascinating planet and very mysterious even though scientists have been studying it closely for hundreds of years.
Christiaan Huygens discovered the first known moon of Saturn in the year 1655 and named it Titan. Giovanni Domenico Cassini (later on the Cassini spacecraft would be named after him) discovered four more moons in the 1670s and 1680s: Iapetus (1671), Rhea (1672), Dione (1684), and Tethys (1684).
The next moon of Saturn wasn't discovered...
Saturn is a fascinating planet and very mysterious even though scientists have been studying it closely for hundreds of years.
Christiaan Huygens discovered the first known moon of Saturn in the year 1655 and named it Titan. Giovanni Domenico Cassini (later on the Cassini spacecraft would be named after him) discovered four more moons in the 1670s and 1680s: Iapetus (1671), Rhea (1672), Dione (1684), and Tethys (1684).
The next moon of Saturn wasn't discovered until over 100 years later—Mimas and Enceladus were found by William Herschel in 1789. The next two moons were found in 1848 (Hyperion) and 1898 (Phoebe).
Currently, astronomers believe that Saturn has a total of 61 moons. It's possible there are more—or less. Why less? Because of the 61 moons, 8 are considered provisional moons, meaning they haven't been totally confirmed as moons yet.
NASA's Saturn Moon page is very comprehensive and has data on every single moon (provisional or not!). You can find it here.
Here's a list of all of Saturn's moons. First up are the confirmed moons, and then the eight provisional moons:
PROVISIONAL MOONS
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