Tarqeq also known as Saturn LII (provisional designation S/2007 S 1) is a natural satellite

Natural satellite

A natural satellite or moon is a celestial body that orbits a planet or smaller body, which is called its primary. The two terms are used synonymously for non-artificial satellites of planets, of dwarf planets, and of minor planets....

 of Saturn

Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...

. Its discovery was announced by Scott S. Sheppard

Scott S. Sheppard

Scott S. Sheppard is an astronomer in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Starting as a graduate student at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, he was credited with the discovery of many small moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and...

, David C. Jewitt

David C. Jewitt

David C. Jewitt is a professor of astronomy formerly at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, now at UCLA. He was born in 1958 in England, and is a 1979 graduate of the University of London. Jewitt received an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in astronomy at the California Institute of Technology in...

, Jan Kleyna

Jan Kleyna

Jan Kleyna is a postdoctoral astronomy researcher at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy. His area of interest is galaxy dynamics, and he has worked to develop codes for the real-time detection of moving objects such as Jovian satellites. He has also co-discovered several of...

, and Brian G. Marsden

Brian G. Marsden

Brian Geoffrey Marsden was a British astronomer born in Cambridge, England, and educated at The Perse School in Cambridge, New College, Oxford and Yale University. Dr...

 on April 13, 2007, from observations taken between January 5, 2006, and March 22, 2007. It is named after Tarqeq, the Inuit

Inuit

The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...

 moon god, and is a member of the Inuit group of irregular satellites. It's about seven kilometres in diameter.

The Tarqiup (Tarqeqan) orbit lies at an inclination

Inclination

Inclination in general is the angle between a reference plane and another plane or axis of direction.-Orbits:The inclination is one of the six orbital parameters describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit...

 of 49.90° (to the ecliptic

Ecliptic

The ecliptic is the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. In more accurate terms, it is the intersection of the celestial sphere with the ecliptic plane, which is the geometric plane containing the mean orbit of the Earth around the Sun...

; 49.77° to Saturn's equator), with an eccentricity

Orbital eccentricity

The orbital eccentricity of an astronomical body is the amount by which its orbit deviates from a perfect circle, where 0 is perfectly circular, and 1.0 is a parabola, and no longer a closed orbit...

 of 0.1081 and a semi-major axis

Semi-major axis

The major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter, a line that runs through the centre and both foci, its ends being at the widest points of the shape...

 of S/2007 S 1 is 17.9106 Gm. Tarqeq orbits in a prograde

Retrograde and direct motion

Apparent retrograde motion is the motion of a planetary body in a direction opposite to that of other bodies within its system as observed from a particular vantage point...

direction with a period of 894.86 days.