Bestla (moon)
moon of Saturn
Bestla or Saturn XXXIX is a retrograde irregular moon of Saturn. Its discovery was announced by Scott S. Sheppard, David C. Jewitt, Jan Kleyna, and Brian G. Marsden on 4 May 2005, from observations taken between 13 December 2004 and 5 March 2005.
Description
Bestla is about 7 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 20,337,900 km in 1087 days, at an inclination of 136° to the ecliptic, in a retrograde direction and with an eccentricity of 0.461. Early observations from 2005 suggested that Bestla had a very high eccentricity of 0.77. Like many of the outer irregular moons of the giant planets, Bestla's eccentricity may vary as a result of the Kozai mechanism. Bestla rotates in a retrograde direction and makes a full rotation every 14.6238±0.0001 hours. Like Kiviuq, it is likely to be a contact binary or binary object, as its light curve has strong variation in brightness and a plateau-like maximum not seen in the other irregulars.
Name
This moon was named in April 2007 after Bestla, a frost giantess from Norse mythology, who is a mother of Odin.
“Bestla (moon)” enters the record as moon of Saturn. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bestla, moon and Saturn can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Bestla (moon)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bestla, moon and Saturn provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18213. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2005, 2004, 1087 and 2007.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Bestla (moon)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Bestla (moon) primary sources, Bestla (moon) archive and Bestla research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bestla (moon)”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Bestla (moon)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.