Saturn's moons in fiction

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Several of Saturn's natural satellites of have figured prominently in works of science fiction.

Contents 1 Janus 2 Mimas 3 Enceladus 4 Tethys 5 Titan 6 Iapetus

[edit] Janus

Janus is a small inner moon of Saturn notable for having an orbit nearly identical to the orbit of the moon Epimetheus; the two swap orbital positions every four years.

• Janus features prominently in Alastair Reynolds' science fiction novel Pushing Ice (2005). In the novel, Janus is revealed to be a shell containing an extraterrestrial spacecraft which unexpectedly departs the solar system in the direction of a giant structure orbiting the star Spica. The novel tells the story of the crew of a human mining ship who establish a colony on the moon as it leaves the solar system.

[edit] Mimas

Mimas is a small, icy moon orbiting close to Saturn, notable for being scarred by Herschel crater, whose diameter is very wide compared to the total circumference of the moon.

• Comparisons have been made between Mimas' appearance and the appearance of the Death Star from the movie Star Wars (see picture). The appearance is a coincidence, as Mimas was not photographed until three years after the release of the film; the similarity has led to Mimas sometimes being called "the Death Star moon".
• In the novels of Rob Grant and Doug Naylor based on their sitcom Red Dwarf, Mimas is the site of a large, congested spaceport where Dave Lister takes shore leave to get over being dumped by his girlfriend Kristine Kochanski and adopts a cat which he names Frankenstein. Both the book and the series refer to the local delicacy "Mimean Bladderfish".
• An episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation features Mimas as the site of an evacuation station to which four Starfleet cadets, including Wesley Crusher, transport after their vessels collide.
• In the 1958 novel Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn (one of Isaac Asimov's famous Lucky Starr juvenile space opera series, which were originally published under the pseudonym of Paul French) the hero, knowing that Mimas is almost entirely made of ice, guides his ship on a collision course toward it, melts its surface with his weapons, and thus hides the ship underwater in order to escape from his enemies, the people from the Sirius System.

[edit] Enceladus

Enceladus is a small, icy moon orbiting close to Saturn, notable for its extremely bright surface and the geyser-like plumes of ice and water vapor that erupt from its southern polar region.

• In Exosquad, Enceladus was the location of a heavily fortified Pirate Clans' outpost and the site of the second battle between them and the Exofleet just prior to the beginning of the Terran-Neosapien war.

[edit] Tethys

Tethys is a small, icy moon orbiting close to Saturn.

• An unnamed Tethys is the setting for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3.
• In the American animated television series Exosquad, Tethys was the primary base of the Pirate Clans prior to the discovery of Chaos.

[edit] Titan

Main article: Titan in fiction

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. Its substantial atmosphere makes it the most Earth-like moon in the Solar System and hence a popular science fiction setting.

[edit] Iapetus

Iapetus is a large moon orbiting further from Saturn than any of its large satellites. It is notable for having half of its surface very bright while the other half is extremely dark. Recent investigations have also noted its irregular shape, immense impact basins, and a high mountainous ridge on the equator.

• In Theodore Sturgeon's short story "The Comedian's Children" (1958), a manned expedition to Iapetus in 2034 creates a public craze for black/white designs and "bi-colored gimcrackery", but is later linked to iapetitis, a disease in children where one side of the body turns white and paralyzed, the other black.
• In Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), astronaut Dave Bowman finds an enigmatic alien monolith waiting for him on the surface of Iapetus. Iapetus' two tone coloration is caused by a vast white ellipse on the moon's surface, with the monolith appearing as a black dot in its exact center. When the Voyager space probes arrived at Iapetus thirteen years later, they discovered that there was indeed a black region within the moon's brighter hemisphere. Clarke reports that Carl Sagan, who was on the Voyager imaging team, sent him a photo, with the note "Thinking of you ...". Because of difficulties achieving a convincing model of Saturn's rings, the film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey relocated the monolith to an orbit around Jupiter.
• In Kim Stanley Robinson's futuristic novel The Memory of Whiteness (1985), Iapetus is populated by the descendants of Soviet colonists who retain a Communist political system.
• In David Weber's novel The Armageddon Inheritance (1993), genocidal aliens (the Achuultani) attempt to use Iapetus as a kinetic energy weapon to destroy all life on Earth.