Satellites Don’t Dance Rock and Roll

Imagine for a moment that you’re an airline pilot with thousands of flight hours, an expert at reading the sky like an open book. You’ve seen sunrises from 30,000 feet, storms that seem to paint the horizon, and constellations that guide you through the night. But suddenly, something appears on your radar—or worse, right before your eyes: an object moving as if it’s breaking every law of physics, performing maneuvers that even the best Hollywood drone couldn’t replicate. And then, when you report it, someone on the ground tells you, in a serious tone: “Relax, captain, what you saw was… the planet Venus.” Seriously? Satellites don’t dance rock and roll, and Venus doesn’t make 90-degree turns at 2,000 kilometers per hour!
 
The history of UFO sightings by airline pilots is filled with moments that border on the comical—not because of the sightings themselves, but because of the “rational” explanations offered afterward. Because, let’s be honest, saying a pilot mistook an unidentified flying object for a weather balloon, a star, or the lights of a power plant is like telling a Michelin-star chef they can’t tell a steak from a shoe. These professionals of the skies aren’t rookies who get spooked by a reflection on the windshield. They know what a plane, a satellite, a meteor, or even a drone looks like. Yet, when they report something that doesn’t fit the manual, the official response often sounds like it was pulled from a comedy script.
 
Let’s take the case of the planet Venus, the skeptics’ favorite explanation. Venus is bright, sure, but it doesn’t do loops, it doesn’t accelerate from 0 to Mach 5 in the blink of an eye, and it doesn’t stop dead as if it hit an invisible wall. An airline pilot, who has spent years staring at the sky, isn’t going to mistake a planet for something that moves like it’s breakdancing in space. Then there are weather balloons, the poor scapegoats of ufology. A weather balloon? Sure, because balloons are famous for their unpredictable maneuvers, their impossible sharp turns, and their ability to make a commercial jet look foolish. Please! If a weather balloon could move like that, we’d already be using them to deliver pizzas in-dot-com in record time.
 
And what about the excuse of “the lights of a power plant”? Picture the scene: a pilot, at 10 kilometers altitude, sees a glowing object zigzagging at impossible speeds, and someone in the control tower says, “What you saw was the chimney of the local factory, which was particularly bright today.” Really? A power plant projecting dancing lights into the night sky? Unless that plant is hosting a cosmic rave with lasers, that explanation doesn’t hold up, not even with duct tape.
 
What makes these explanations so absurd is that they underestimate the pilots’ ability to recognize what they see. These professionals are trained to identify objects in the sky in a split second—because the safety of hundreds of passengers depends on it. They know how a satellite moves, following a predictable orbit without performing acrobatics like a circus performer. They can tell the difference between a reflection, an atmospheric phenomenon, or an enemy aircraft. When a pilot says, “This isn’t normal,” they’re not speaking from ignorance but from experience. And when they describe movements that defy known aerodynamics—impossible turns, instantaneous accelerations, objects that vanish without a trace—it’s worth listening to them before pulling out the “it was a balloon” card.
 
I’m not saying every sighting is an alien spacecraft. There could be advanced technological explanations, rare natural phenomena, or even secret military projects. But reducing something so strange and fascinating to “Venus” or “a satellite” is, at best, a lack of imagination, and at worst, an insult to the intelligence of those who navigate the skies. Because if one thing is clear, it’s that satellites don’t dance rock and roll, and UFOs, whatever they are, don’t seem to follow the rules of our flight manual. So, the next time a pilot reports something strange, instead of offering a textbook explanation, maybe we should start by saying, “Tell us more, captain. This sounds interesting.”

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The largest "egg" in the world

It’s called Methone (or Metone), a small, egg-shaped rocky satellite with a diameter of just 3 kilometers, orbiting within our solar system. Located 194,000 km from Saturn, its orbit experiences oscillations of about 20 km due to the gravitational influence of the nearby moon Mimas.

Another distinctive feature of this “space egg” is that, among all the rocky satellites in our solar system, it appears to have the smoothest surface. Also known as Saturn XXXII, Methone completes one orbit around Saturn in a single day.
 

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Enceladus has a warm heart

Until recently, active volcanism was known to exist only on two planets, Venus and Earth, and on Jupiter’s moon Io. However, it has now been confirmed that Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, also exhibits this phenomenon.

This satellite orbits Saturn at a distance of 238,040 km, doing so synchronously (always showing the same face) in 32.9 hours. It is nearly spherical, with a diameter of 499 km, and its icy surface displays remarkable diversity: some regions are almost smooth, devoid of geological features, while others show fracture lines from tectonic activity, and still others are dotted with impact craters. The most striking feature, however, lies at its South Pole.
 
There, scientists have identified what they’ve dubbed “tiger stripes”—grooves stretching 130 km long, 2 km wide, and 500 meters deep. From these, massive jets of water vapor, solid materials like sodium chloride crystals and ice, volatile compounds, and—surprisingly—organic material are continuously ejected into space at a rate of up to 200 kg per second. The Cassini spacecraft, which explored this moon, detected over 100 such geysers, confirming the presence of an internal heat source. The concentration of this activity at the South Pole may be due to centrifugal forces pushing denser material toward the equator and lighter material toward the poles. Some of the expelled water vapor falls back as snow, while the rest escapes, contributing to Saturn’s outermost and faintest E ring, within which Enceladus orbits.
 
This internal heat source drives volcanoes and hydrothermal vents, similar to those found on Earth’s ocean floors. Beneath its icy surface, Enceladus harbors a liquid water ocean about 30 km deep and 10 km thick, situated above its central core. Yet, there may be additional, unknown heat sources at play. For instance, Enceladus is in an orbital resonance with its neighboring moon Dione (completing two orbits around Saturn for every one of Dione’s), which helps maintain its orbital eccentricity and generates extra heat through geological activity. Between these factors, scientists are left astounded—especially upon discovering that the heat output at the South Pole reaches nearly 16 million watts, ten times higher than previously estimated, with no clear explanation yet uncovered.
 
At the surface, Enceladus is blanketed in ice, with an average temperature of -198°C. This varies by location and time, ranging from -240°C to -128°C—except, of course, in the South Pole regions where the constant geysers emerge.
 
Its atmosphere consists of water vapor (91%), nitrogen (4%), carbon dioxide (3.2%), and methane (1.7%). This composition, along with its subsurface ocean and hydrothermal activity, has sparked significant scientific interest, positioning Enceladus as one of the most promising locations in our solar system for potential life, particularly near its hydrothermal vents.
 

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The "Death Star" does exist

Many people have compared Mimas to the “Death Star” from the movie Star Wars due to its striking resemblance. Although it is not a perfect sphere—being somewhat deformed by Saturn’s gravitational pull—one of its sides stands out with an enormous crater, Herschel, measuring 130 km in diameter, mirroring the proportions and position seen in the film. Considering that the average diameter of this moon is 397 km, the crater’s immense size becomes clear, as evidenced by the fracture lines on the opposite side of the satellite, a result of the tremendous impact that created it. The frigid temperature of its surface (-209°C) seems fitting for its “Death Star” likeness, as does its low reflectivity (albedo of 0.07).

One peculiar feature of this moon is the wobble it exhibits around its polar axis, suggesting that its interior is not uniform. Some speculate that it may have a melon-shaped rocky core, while others propose the existence of an internal ocean beneath a layer of ice, approximately 25 to 30 km thick, which could partially explain this wobbling motion.
 
Beyond the Herschel crater, Mimas’ surface has reached a point of saturation, meaning any new asteroid impact would inevitably strike one of the countless craters already covering it. While it’s uncertain whether Mimas experienced geological activity in the past, it displays very ancient grooves, about 1 km deep, which might hint at such internal processes. Across its rugged terrain, some craters have walls rising up to 4 km high, containing dusty material likely produced by landslides. 

Additionally, despite the prevailing cold, not all areas of the surface share the same temperature, with some regions detected as being slightly less frigid.

Mimas orbits Saturn at a distance of 185,520 km and is tidally locked, always presenting the same face to the planet. It completes one orbit in nearly a day (22.5 hours). Its gravity, meanwhile, is a mere 0.07.
 
Finally, it’s worth noting a curious role Mimas plays: it helps clear particles from the gap between Saturn’s A and B rings.
 

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Saturn and its satellites

In addition to the classic rings that surround Saturn, this planet has an enormous cohort of satellites orbiting it—not as many as Jupiter, but still a significant number. So far, 62 of them have been identified (though many are quite small), and this list continues to grow year by year. The most notable ones due to their size are: Titan (5,150 km in diameter), Iapetus (1,560 km), Rhea (1,528 km), Dione (1,120 km), Tethys (1,060 km), and Enceladus (496 km).

The complete list, ordered by distance from Saturn, is as follows, including their size and orbital period (those marked with a minus sign indicate they rotate in a retrograde direction):
 

Satéllite	Distance from Saturn (Km.)	Diámeter (Km.)	Orbital period (days)
S/2009 S1	117.000	0,3	0,4
Pan	133.600	20	0,5
Dafne	137.000	6,5	?
Atlas	137.670	37x34x27	0,6
Prometeo	139.350	48x100x68	0,6
Pandora	141.700	110x88x62	0,6
Epimeteo	151.420	194x190x154	0,6
Jano	151.470	138x110x110	0,6
Egeón	167.500	0,5	0,8
Mimas	185.540	415x394x381	0,9
Metone	194.000	3	1,0
Anthe	197.700	2	1,0
Palene	211.000	4	1,1
Encélado	238.040	499	1,3
Tetis	294.670	1.046	1,8
Telesto	294.670	30x25x15	1,8
Calipso	294.670	30x16x16	1,8
Dione	377.420	1.118	2,7
Helena	377.420	36x32x30	2,7
Pollux	377.396	3,5	2,7
Rea	527.040	1.528	4,5
Titán	1.221.850	5.150	15,4
Hiperión	1.464.100	360x280x225	21,2
Jápeto	3.561.300	1.436	79,3
Kiviuq	11.365.000	14	449,2
Ijiraq	11.442.000	10	451,4
Febe	12.952.000	230x220x210	550,4
Paaliaq	15.198.000	20	686,9
Skadi	15.641.000	6	728,1
Albiorix	16.394.000	26	783,4
S/2007 S2	16.560.000	6	-792,9
Bebhionn	17.153.520	6	838,7
Skoll	17.473.800	6	-862,3
Erriapo	17.604.000	8	871,2
Tarqeq	17.910.600	7	894,8
S/2004 S13	18.056.300	6	-905,8
Greip	18.065.700	6	-906,5
Hyrokkin	18.168.300	8	-914,2
Siatnaq	18.195.000	32	895,5
Tarvos	18.239.000	15	926,1
Jarnsaxa	18.556.900	6	-943,7
Narvi	18.719.000	7	956,1
Mundilfari	18.722.000	6	951,5
S/2006 S1	18.930.200	6	-972,4
S/2004 S17	19.099.200	4	-985,5
Bergelmir	19.104.000	6	-985,8
Suttungr	19.465.000	6	1.016,5
Hati	19.709.300	6	-1.033,0
S/2004 S12	19.905.900	5	-1.048,5
Farbauti	19.984.800	5	-1.054,7
Thrymr	20.219.000	6	1.091,7
Aegir	20.482.900	6	-1.094,4
S/2007 S3	20.518.500	5	-1.100,0
Bestia	20.570.000	7	-1.101,4
S/2004 S7	20.576.700	6	-1.101,9
S/2006 S3	21.076.300	6	-1.142,3
Fenrir	21.930.644	4	-1.212,5
Surtur	22.288.916	6	-1.242.5
Kari	22.321.200	7	-1.245,0
Ymir	22.429.673	18	-1.254,1
Loge	22.984.322	6	-1.300,9
Fornjot	24.504.879	6	-1432,1

A journey through the history of the pharmaceutical industry and one of its great laboratories that had its origins in Alfred Nobel...
“From Alfred Nobel to AstraZeneca” (Vicente Fisac, Amazon) is available in e-Book and print editions: https://a.co/d/9svRTuI