Steve Callaghan, age 14, of West Warwick, R.I., for his question:

ARE SATURN'S MOONS INSIDE OR OUTSIDE THE RINGS?

The 10 known moons of Saturn are way outside and it is not likely that another one could exist inside the rings. For one thing, there is hardly room for a comfortable orbit between the surface of the big planet and the closest of its dazzling rings. Besides, it is quite possible that debris from the rings frequently plunges down to the surface  and a moon in this region might be bombarded to pieces.

From the earth we see Saturn as a bright staring eye, often as the golden morning or evening star. We need a small telescope to get a glimpse of its sparkling ring system, but this cannot give us a true picture of their stupendous dimensions. More powerful telescopes were needed to spot the orbiting moons, the tenth of which remained undiscovered until 1966.

The diameter of the ring system is about 17.0,000 miles, making its outer edge some 50,000 miles above the planet's surface. The closest moon orbits around Saturn at an estimated distance of 95,000 miles. This leaves a space of more than 45,000 miles between the closest known moon and the outer limits of the ring system.

This little moon has an estimated diameter of merely 190 miles. It was given the name Janus from ancient mythology to match the names of Saturn's other nine moons. The largest of these is fascinating Titan, which occupies the seventh orbit at a distance of 795,000 miles from the planet. Titan is larger than the earth's moon and long known to have an atmosphere of its own.

Six smaller moons have orbits spaced between about 100,000 and almost a million miles from the planet. The smallish moon is Iapetus, at a distance of more than 2 million miles. And so far as we know, the outside moon is little Pheobe, which swings around the big planet at a distance of more than 8 million miles.

At present, the known satellites of Saturn are outside the ring system. But our modern space probes are full of surprises. The Voyager planetary probes in the 70’s discovered several  moons in that 6,000 mile space between the planet and the surrounding area.