Pandora, one of Saturn’s moons, acts as a shepherd for which ring?

Pandora, one of Saturn’s moons, acts as a shepherd for the F ring. It orbits just outside the narrow, braided F ring and helps influence the ring’s structure through gravitational interactions.

Pandora is one of the small moons discovered in the Saturn system during the Voyager era. It works with the inner shepherd moon Prometheus, whose orbit lies on the other side of the F ring. Their combined gravitational effects help confine and shape the ring material.

The F ring is especially dynamic compared with many of Saturn’s broader rings. It contains strands, kinks, and temporary structures affected by the shepherd moons and by collisions among particles.

Pandora should not be confused with Saturn’s larger moon Titan or with the mythological figure. Astronomers named the moon after Pandora, a figure from Greek mythology, continuing the convention of mythological names for many planetary satellites.