Paaliaq

Paaliaq is a natural object that orbits the planet Saturn. It was found by scientists in October 2000 and was given a temporary name, S/2000 S 2. In August 2003, it was officially named Paaliaq after a character from a book called The Curse of the Shaman by Michael Kusugak. Michael Kusugak helped suggest names from Inuit mythology for other moons of Saturn too.

Physical characteristics

Paaliaq is about 29 kilometres wide. It travels around Saturn at an average distance of 15.0 million km and takes 687 days to complete one orbit. It is part of the Inuit group of irregular satellites.

Paaliaq has a light red color. In the infrared, it looks very similar to the Inuit-group satellites Kiviuq and Siarnaq. This suggests that the Inuit group might have come from a larger object that broke apart. Its light curve shows an unusual pattern, indicating that it has a very strange shape.