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A small moon of Saturn, some six kilometres in diameter with a rather elongated shape. Hati is one of Saturn's many irregular moons, pursuing a retrograde orbit around the planet, which implies that it represents an object captured by Saturn's gravity, or perhaps a fragment of debris from such a capture event. Though a tiny and unremarkable moon in many respects, Hati is notable for its speed of rotation: it turns on its axis in five hours and twenty-seven minutes. This is the fastest known rate of rotation for any moon within the Solar System.
As an outer irregular moon of Saturn, Hati belongs to the extensive Norse group of satellites. This group extends outward for distances between sixteen and twenty-six million kilometres from Saturn, and consists of some forty-six known moons. Hati itself lies somewhere near the middle of this populous group, with a semi-major axis of 19,697,100 km.
All of these Norse satellites of Saturn are named for beings from Norse mythology (with the sole exception of the inner irregular Phoebe, which was discovered before the convention was established). The name Hati comes from a monstrous wolf, who (according to most versions of the myth, at least) was the twin of Skoll and child of Fenrir (both of which also have their own named moons within the Norse group).
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