Skoll: Saturn's Speedy Wolf Moon!

Imagine a tiny rock, only about 3 miles wide, whizzing around the giant planet Saturn. That's Skoll! It's not a big, round moon like our own Earth's moon. Skoll is a bit lumpy and bumpy. It's so small that if you could hold it, it would be about the size of a few school buses lined up end-to-end. This little moon is a fast traveler, zipping around Saturn in a very wiggly path.

Skoll got its name from an old story! In Norse mythology, Sköll was a giant, super-fast wolf. This wolf was so big and powerful that it chased the sun across the sky every day! Skoll the moon is named after this legendary wolf because it's also a speedy traveler in space, even though it's much, much smaller than a mythical wolf. It's like naming a speedy race car after a cheetah!

Skoll doesn't just go in a simple circle around Saturn. Its path is more like a wobbly oval, and it's tilted a bit too! This means its journey can be a bit unpredictable. It takes Skoll a very long time to go all the way around Saturn – almost two and a half Earth years! That's longer than you've been in school! Scientists are still learning about its strange path and why it wobbles so much.

Skoll was a secret hiding in space until scientists found it! They used special telescopes to look closely at Saturn and its many moons. It took a lot of looking at pictures taken over several months to finally spot Skoll. It was officially announced as a new moon in 2006. Finding new moons is like finding hidden treasures in the vastness of space!