In James Cameron’s Avatar universe, Pandora is a moon. It is a fictional natural satellite orbiting the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri star system.
Pandora is the primary setting of the 2009 film Avatar and its sequels. Humans travel there to mine unobtanium, while the moon’s Na’vi inhabitants maintain a close spiritual and ecological relationship with their environment. The story’s use of Pandora as a moon allows the setting to combine alien landscapes with the visual idea of a world orbiting a much larger planet.
Pandora is sometimes casually called a planet because it functions as the main inhabited world in the films. Scientifically within the fictional setting, however, it is a moon. Polyphemus is the enormous planet visible in Pandora’s sky, while Alpha Centauri is the nearby stellar system containing them.
The name also deliberately echoes the Pandora of Greek mythology, linking the film’s ideas about exploration, danger, and unintended consequences with the ancient story.