In the film Avatar, what fictional mineral draws humans to Pandora?

In James Cameron’s film Avatar, unobtanium is the fictional mineral that draws humans to Pandora. The resource is extremely valuable because it has superconducting properties at relatively warm temperatures, making it important to Earth’s energy economy in the film’s setting.

The human corporation Resources Development Administration establishes mining operations on Pandora to extract unobtanium. The mineral’s commercial value brings the human characters into conflict with the Na’vi, whose homes and sacred places are threatened by industrial expansion.

“Unobtanium” is also a long-standing engineering joke and informal term for a material with ideal but impossible or unavailable properties. Avatar turns that playful expression into a concrete fictional substance with a major role in the plot.

The mineral is unrelated to the mythological jar or to the real asteroid and moon named Pandora. All three uses connect through the name Pandora, but the film’s resource belongs entirely to its science-fiction world.