In the Saturn system, what kind of moon is Pandora?

In the Saturn system, Pandora is a shepherd moon. It helps confine and shape Saturn’s narrow F ring through gravitational interactions, together with the moon Prometheus.

Pandora was discovered in images returned by Voyager 1 in 1980. It is an irregular, small moon that orbits just outside Saturn’s F ring, while Prometheus orbits on the ring’s inner side. Their combined gravity helps maintain the ring’s narrow and braided appearance.

The astronomical moon was named after Pandora from Greek mythology, continuing a long tradition of giving Saturnian moons names from classical literature and myth. It should not be confused with Pandora in the film Avatar, which is a fictional moon of the exoplanet Polyphemus. The real Pandora is part of Saturn’s complex ring-and-moon system.