page_title: Pallene (moon)
section_title: Discovery
hierarchical_section_title: Pallene (moon) / Discovery
caption_attribution_description: English: Discovery image of Pallene (S/2004 S 2), a satellite of Saturn. Image taken by the en:Cassini-Huygens probe on June 1, 2004 from 16 Gm. This image has been cropped down from the original.
context_page_description: Pallene is a very small natural satellite of Saturn. It is one of three small moons known as the Alkyonides that lie between the orbits of the larger Mimas and Enceladus. It is also designated Saturn XXXIII.
context_section_description: Pallene was discovered by the Cassini Imaging Team in 2004, during the Cassini–Huygens mission. It was given the temporary designation S/2004 S 2. In 2005, the name Pallene was provisionally approved by the IAU Division III Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature, and was ratified at the IAU General Assembly in 2006. The name refers to Pallene, one of the Alkyonides, the seven beautiful daughters of the giant Alkyoneus.
  After the discovery in 2004, it was realized that Pallene had been first photographed on August 23, 1981, by the space probe Voyager 2. It had appeared in a single photograph and had been provisionally named S/1981 S 14 and estimated to orbit 200,000 km from Saturn. Because it had not been visible in other images, it had not been possible to compute its orbit at the time, but recent comparisons have shown it to match Pallene's orbit.
caption: Discovery image of Pallene in 2004 from the Cassini probe
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