Skoll is a member of the Norse group of moons, which orbit Saturn at mean distances ranging from 12 to 24 million km, at inclinations between 136° and 176° from the plane of Saturn's equator, and with eccentricities between 0.12 and 0.77. (A satellite's eccentricity is a number between 0 and 1 which describes the shape of the orbit. The closer to 0, the more circular it is; the closer to 1, the more elongated.)
The Norse moons all have retrograde orbits (they travel around Saturn in the opposite direction from the planet's rotation). That and their deviations from circular orbits and from the plane of Saturn's equator classify them as "irregular" satellites. Like Saturn's other irregular moons, they are thought to be objects that were captured by Saturn's gravity, rather than having accreted from the dusty disk that surrounded the newly formed planet as the regular satellites are thought to have done.
Unlike the Gallic and Inuit groups of Saturn's moons, the wide range of distances, inclinations and eccentricities among moons in the Norse group suggest that they are not the pieces of a single original object that shattered in a collision, but they may be the pieces of several such "original" objects. Skoll appears to be a member of a subgroup that also includes Skathi, Hyrrokkin, S/2006 S1, Bergelmir, Farbauti, S/2006 S3, and Kari.
Skoll has a mean radius of about 3 km, assuming an albedo of 0.04. It orbits Saturn at an inclination of about 160° and an eccentricity of about 0.5. At a mean distance of 17.7 million km from Saturn, the satellite takes about 878 Earth days to complete one orbit.
Discovery:
Skoll was discovered on 6 March 2006 by Scott S. Sheppard, David C. Jewitt and Jan T. Kleyna using the Subaru 8.3-m reflector telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
How Skoll Got its Name:
Originally called S/2006 S8, Skoll was named for a giant wolf in Norse mythology, who pursues the sun (that is, the sun chariot and the girl who drives it -- see Mundilfari for an explanation) across the sky. It is destined to catch and devour them at the doomsday time known as Ragnarok.
