In astronomy, Pandora is the name of a moon orbiting Saturn. It is a small satellite discovered in photographs taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1980.
Pandora is known as an outer shepherd moon of Saturn’s F ring. Along with the moon Prometheus, it helps influence the narrow, braided, and changing structure of that ring through gravitational interactions.
The moon was named after Pandora from Greek mythology, continuing a naming tradition in which many bodies associated with Saturn receive names from mythological figures. Its name therefore connects a space-science subject with the Pandora story without making the moon itself part of the myth.
Pandora is irregularly shaped and relatively small compared with Saturn’s major moons. It should not be confused with Prometheus, which is another Saturnian moon and a nearby shepherd of the F ring.