Moonlet

A moonlet, minor moon, minor natural satellite, or minor satellite is a small natural satellite orbiting a planet, dwarf planet, or other minor planet.

Until 1995, moonlets were only thought to exist in Saturn's F ring. But, in that year, Earth crossed the plane of Saturn's rings. Both the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory spotted objects near or moving around the F ring.

In 2004, the Cassini spacecraft spotted an object about 4-5 kilometers wide in the outer part of the F ring. Five hours later, it spotted the same object in the inner part of the ring. This showed that the object was moving around Saturn in an orbit.

There are some types of small moons called moonlets:

• Small objects inside planetary rings, mostly Saturn's rings.
• Small moons orbiting asteroids.
• Flashes seen near Jupiter's moon Amalthea, which may be caused by pieces of material thrown off its surface.
• Submoons (moons orbiting moons).

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1. ↑ Winter, O. C.; Mourao, D. C.; Winter, S. M. Giuliatti; Spahn, F.; da Cruz, C. (2007-09-01). "Moonlets wandering on a leash-ring". Blackwell Publishing. doi:10.1111/j.1745-3933.2007.00347.x. ISSN 0035-8711. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
2. ↑ Zielinski, Sarah. "The Birth of Saturn's Moonlets". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2026-11-03.