In Avatar, what type of celestial body is Pandora?

In Avatar, Pandora is a moon orbiting the fictional gas giant Polyphemus.

The 2009 film Avatar places the Na’vi homeworld in the Alpha Centauri star system. Pandora is not a planet, even though its forests, mountains, atmosphere, and indigenous life make it look like a complete world to viewers. Its status as a moon is part of the film’s fictional astronomical setting.

Pandora’s environment drives the story. Humans travel there to mine the valuable mineral unobtanium, while the Na’vi maintain a spiritual and ecological relationship with the moon’s living systems. The film’s visual design presents Pandora as a dense, biologically interconnected landscape rather than as a barren satellite.

The name deliberately echoes the Greek mythological figure, but the film’s Pandora is not the myth’s container or person. It is a setting created for James Cameron’s science-fiction universe.