Desdemona: Saturn's Tiny Moon!

Imagine a tiny moon, much smaller than our own Moon! That's Desdemona. It's not round like a ball, but more like a bumpy potato. It's a moon, which means it's a natural object that orbits a planet. Desdemona's planet is the giant ringed planet, Saturn! It's a very small moon, only about 68 kilometers (42 miles) across. That's shorter than many tall buildings stacked on top of each other!

Desdemona is always on the move! It zips around Saturn super fast. It takes Desdemona less than 14 hours to complete one full trip around its giant planet. That's faster than you can watch your favorite cartoon! It orbits Saturn at a distance of about 145,000 kilometers (90,000 miles). That's far, but much closer than Earth is to the Sun.

Scientists think Desdemona is made of rock and ice, just like many other moons in our solar system. It's not a big, fluffy gas planet; it's a solid little world. Because it's so small and rocky, it doesn't have any air to breathe or water to swim in. It's a cold, dark place way out in space, orbiting the sixth planet from the Sun.

Desdemona wasn't always known. It's too small to see without a powerful telescope. It was discovered in 1985 by a team of scientists using a telescope. They were looking closely at Saturn and its many moons. They spotted this little rocky moon and named it Desdemona, after a character in a famous play by William Shakespeare.