<P> Twenty - four of Saturn's moons are regular satellites; they have prograde orbits not greatly inclined to Saturn's equatorial plane . They include the seven major satellites, four small moons that exist in a trojan orbit with larger moons, two mutually co-orbital moons and two moons that act as shepherds of Saturn's F Ring . Two other known regular satellites orbit within gaps in Saturn's rings . The relatively large Hyperion is locked in a resonance with Titan . The remaining regular moons orbit near the outer edge of the A Ring, within G Ring and between the major moons Mimas and Enceladus . The regular satellites are traditionally named after Titans and Titanesses or other figures associated with the mythological Saturn . </P> <P> The remaining 38, with mean diameters ranging from 4 to 213 km, are irregular satellites, whose orbits are much farther from Saturn, have high inclinations, and are mixed between prograde and retrograde . These moons are probably captured minor planets, or debris from the breakup of such bodies after they were captured, creating collisional families . The irregular satellites have been classified by their orbital characteristics into the Inuit, Norse, and Gallic groups, and their names are chosen from the corresponding mythologies . The largest of the irregular moons is Phoebe, the ninth moon of Saturn, discovered at the end of the 19th century . </P> <P> The rings of Saturn are made up of objects ranging in size from microscopic to moonlets hundreds of meters across, each in its own orbit around Saturn . Thus a precise number of Saturnian moons cannot be given, because there is no objective boundary between the countless small anonymous objects that form Saturn's ring system and the larger objects that have been named as moons . Over 150 moonlets embedded in the rings have been detected by the disturbance they create in the surrounding ring material, though this is thought to be only a small sample of the total population of such objects . </P> <P> Before the advent of telescopic photography, eight moons of Saturn were discovered by direct observation using optical telescopes . Saturn's largest moon, Titan, was discovered in 1655 by Christiaan Huygens using a 57 - millimeter (2.2 in) objective lens on a refracting telescope of his own design . Tethys, Dione, Rhea and Iapetus (the "Sidera Lodoicea") were discovered between 1671 and 1684 by Giovanni Domenico Cassini . Mimas and Enceladus were discovered in 1789 by William Herschel . Hyperion was discovered in 1848 by W.C. Bond, G.P. Bond and William Lassell . </P>

How many moons are in saturn's rings
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