In astronomy, Pandora was the Saturn moon discovered in 1980 by images from Voyager 1.
Pandora is a small outer shepherd moon of Saturn’s narrow F ring. Voyager 1 images revealed it in October 1980, and the discovery was later announced with the designation S/1980 S 26. The moon was named after Pandora, the figure from Greek mythology.
Pandora helps gravitationally confine the F ring from the outside, while the nearby moon Prometheus shepherds it from the inside. This arrangement makes the two moons especially important in studies of ring structure and gravitational interactions.
Pandora is irregularly shaped and heavily cratered. It should not be confused with Prometheus or Epimetheus, which are separate Saturnian moons. All three names come from Greek mythology, but only Pandora is the moon associated with the outer side of Saturn’s F ring.