(mostly written in 2004, before the Cassini spacecraft reached Saturn)
Part of the ring system of Saturn containing the small satellite, Pan. The Cassini Division is on the left, Encke's Gap on the right. The small box is the area shown in more detail below. In that image, the arrow points to Pan, which lies inside the Encke Gap.
| Data for Pan
Discovered by Mark Showalter in 1990, using Voyager 2 photographs taken in 1981
Named after the Greek god of forests and pastures
Orbital size 133,580 km (about 83,000 miles) (only 45,000 miles from surface of Saturn)
Orbital eccentricity 0%
Orbital inclination 0 degrees
Orbital period 13.8 hours
Diameter about 20 km (about 12 miles)
Albedo (reflectivity) 50%
Pan's gravitational interaction with Saturn and its ring particles creates Encke's Gap
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