Saturn: Moons: Atlas

From left to right: a view of Atlas' trailing hemisphere, with north up, at a spatial scale of about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) per pixel; Atlas seen at about 250 meters (820 feet) per pixel from mid-southern latitudes, with the sub-Saturn hemisphere at the top and leading hemisphere to the left.

Atlas orbits around the outer edge of Saturn's A Ring and acts as a shepherding satellite, constraining the extent of the outer edge of this ring.

Discovery
Atlas was discovered by the Voyager1 science team in 1980 from photographs taken during the spacecraft's encounter with Saturn.

How Atlas Got its Name
Satellites in the Saturnian system are named for Greco-Roman Titans, descendants of the Titans, the Roman god of the beginning and giants from Greco-Roman and other mythologies. Gallic, Inuit and Norse names identify three different orbit groups.

Atlas (AT-less) was a son of Iapetus. After the defeat of the Titans, Zeus ordered Atlas, "at earth's uttermost places, near the sweet-singing Hesprides" to uphold the vault of the sky. Atlas was so strong that he supported the weight of the Universe on his shoulders.