thumb|upright=2|An annotated picture of [[Saturn's many moons captured by the Cassini spacecraft. Shown in the image are Dione, Enceladus, Epimetheus, Prometheus, Mimas, Rhea, Janus, Tethys and Titan.]]

thumb|upright=2|Diagram showing the highly clustered orbits of Saturn's 250 known outer [[irregular moons . The majority of these irregular moons orbit retrograde, or opposite to the direction of Saturn's rotation. The orbits of retrograde moons are colored red while the orbits of prograde moons are colored blue.]]

Saturn has 292 moons with confirmed orbits as of 9 April 2026, the most of any planet in the Solar System. Enceladus emits jets of ice from its south-polar region and is covered in a deep layer of snow, and Iapetus has contrasting black and white hemispheres as well as an extensive ridge of equatorial mountains which are among the tallest in the Solar System.

Twenty-four of the confirmed moons are regular satellites; they have prograde orbits not greatly inclined to Saturn's equatorial plane (except Iapetus, which has a prograde but significantly inclined orbit). They include the seven rounded satellites, and four small moons that exist in a trojan orbit with some of the large moons. Four orbit inside of the diffuse G ring or between the major moons Mimas and Enceladus. Two moons are mutually co-orbital, Janus and Epimetheus. The relatively large Hyperion is locked in an orbital resonance with Titan. The remaining regular moons orbit near the edges of or within gaps in the main rings, some of which act as shepherd moons of the dense A Ring and the narrow F Ring. The regular satellites are traditionally named after Titans and Titanesses or other figures associated with the mythological Saturn, and one, S/2009 S 1, remains unnamed.

The remaining 268 moons, with mean diameters ranging from , orbit much farther from Saturn. They are irregular satellites, which have high orbital inclinations and eccentricities mixed between prograde and retrograde. These moons are probably captured minor planets, or fragments from the collisional breakup of such bodies after they were captured, creating collisional families. The irregular satellites are classified by their orbital characteristics into the prograde Inuit and Gallic groups and the large retrograde Norse group, and their names are chosen from the corresponding mythologies (with the Gallic group corresponding to Celtic mythology). Phoebe, the largest irregular Saturnian moon, is the sole exception to this naming system; it is part of the Norse group but named for a Greek Titaness. 228 of Saturn's irregular moons are unnamed. which arrived at Saturn in July 2004, initially discovered three small inner moons: Methone and Pallene between Mimas and Enceladus, and the second trojan moon of Dione, Polydeuces. It also observed three suspected but unconfirmed moons in the F Ring. (related image)

Search for irregulars

thumb|This image demonstrates the application of the [[shift-and-add technique to the detection of a faint moon of Saturn (S/2019 S 1; circled in red). While the moon is barely visible in an individual image (top panel), it can be seen better when many images of the moon are taken, stacked to the moon's motion and then added together (bottom panel)]]

Study of Saturn's moons has also been aided by advances in telescope instrumentation, primarily the introduction of digital charge-coupled devices which replaced photographic plates. For the 20th century, Phoebe stood alone among Saturn's known moons with its highly irregular orbit. Then in 2000, a team of astronomers led by Brett J. Gladman discovered twelve irregular moons of Saturn using various ground-based telescopes around the world. Yet another moon, S/2006 S 20, was announced on 23 May 2023, bringing Saturn's total count moons to 146. bringing the total number of confirmed moons to 274. These moons were found by Ashton, Gladman, Mike Alexandersen, and Jean-Marc Petit, using the CFHT in 2023, as a continuation of their survey.

<blockquote>As Saturn devoured his children, his family could not be assembled around him, so that the choice lay among his brothers and sisters, the Titans and Titanesses. The name Iapetus seemed indicated by the obscurity and remoteness of the exterior satellite, Titan by the superior size of the Huyghenian, while the three female appellations [Rhea, Dione, and Tethys] class together the three intermediate Cassinian satellites. The minute interior ones seemed appropriately characterized by a return to male appellations [Enceladus and Mimas] chosen from a younger and inferior (though still superhuman) brood. [Results of the Astronomical Observations made ... at the Cape of Good Hope, p.&nbsp;415]</blockquote>

In 1848, Lassell proposed that the eighth satellite of Saturn be named Hyperion after another Titan.

Some asteroids share the same names as moons of Saturn: 55 Pandora, 106 Dione, 577 Rhea, 1809 Prometheus, 1810 Epimetheus, and 4450 Pan. In addition, three more asteroids would share the names of Saturnian moons if not for spelling differences made permanent by the IAU: Calypso and asteroid 53 Kalypso; Helene and asteroid 101 Helena; and Gunnlod and asteroid 657 Gunlöd.

Formation

There are three main scenarios proposed to explain how the regular moons of Saturn formed. The first scenario proposes that they are remnants of the debris of a giant impact or the disruption of a previous moon system. It is thought that the Saturnian system of Titan, mid-sized moons, and rings developed from a set-up closer to the Galilean moons of Jupiter, though the details are unclear. It has been proposed either that a second Titan-sized moon broke up, producing the rings and inner mid-sized moons, or that two large moons fused to form Titan, with the collision scattering icy debris that formed the mid-sized moons.

Another more generic theory proposes that they that formed directly from the original circumplanetary disk around Saturn. The gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, are expected to have had circumplanetary disks, while this is considered unlikely for the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. The moons may have originated from the higher-density regions within the disk, and the mass of the system may be a reflection of the mass of the disk. Alternatively, several sets of moons may have formed then fallen out of their orbits due to drag with the disk, leading to the survival of only one large moon (Titan). Several act as shepherd moons, and they are Pan (Encke gap), Daphnis (Keeler gap), and Prometheus (F Ring).

Imagery shows that Aegaeon, Methone, and Pallene are much darker than expected, possibly due to exposure to high-energy radiation. Of the two, only Methone has been imaged from close range, showing it to be egg-shaped with very few or no craters.

Trojans

Trojan moons are a unique feature only known from the Saturnian system. A trojan body orbits at either the leading L<sub>4</sub> or trailing L<sub>5</sub> Lagrange point of a much larger object, such as a large moon or planet. Tethys has two trojan moons, Telesto (leading) and Calypso (trailing), and Dione also has two, Helene (leading) and Polydeuces (trailing).

Major moons

In the Saturnian system, there are seven moons large enough to be ellipsoidal, though Hyperion is often taken with them to make eight major moons. Sometimes Phoebe is included as well, though usually it is placed with the irregular satellites (see below). The moons inward of Titan orbit within Saturn's tenuous E Ring. The three smaller moons of the Alkyonides group and the trojan moons orbit with the innermost four moons.

  • Mimas is the smallest and least massive of the round moons, although its mass is sufficient to alter the orbit of Methone. The only tectonic features known are a few arcuate and linear troughs, which probably formed when Mimas was shattered by the Herschel impact.

: Otherwise Rhea has rather a typical heavily cratered surface, On 23 June 2014, NASA claimed to have strong evidence that nitrogen in the atmosphere of Titan came from materials in the Oort cloud, associated with comets, and not from the materials that formed Saturn in earlier times.

: The surface of Titan, which is difficult to observe due to persistent atmospheric haze, shows only a few impact craters and is probably very young.

  • Hyperion is Titan's nearest neighbor in the Saturnian system. The two moons are locked in a 4:3 mean-motion resonance with each other, meaning that while Titan makes four revolutions around Saturn, Hyperion makes exactly three.

Irregular moons

thumb|upright=1.25|Orbits and positions of Saturn's 250 irregular moons as of March 2025. Prograde orbits are colored blue while retrograde orbits are colored red. Saturn's outermost regular moons, Titan, Hyperion, and Iapetus, are also shown with turquoise orbits.

Irregular moons are small satellites with distant, inclined, and frequently retrograde orbits, believed to have been acquired by the parent planet through a capture process. They often occur as collisional families or groups. Spectroscopic measurement showed that the surface is made of water ice, carbon dioxide, phyllosilicates, organics and possibly iron-bearing minerals.

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| style="background:#fff;" |&nbsp; Other regular moons (17)

| style="background:#ccf;" | ♠ Round moons (7)

| style="background:#f4c2c2" | ♦ Inuit group (39)

| style="background:#fdd5b1" | ♣ Gallic group (19)

| style="background:#d3d3d3" | ‡ Norse group (210)

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! Label<br>|| || || || 48.5 || 0.378 || Inuit group