Pandora, the moon discovered in 1980, orbits Saturn.
Pandora is a small outer satellite of Saturn and acts as a shepherd moon for Saturn’s narrow F ring. Its gravitational influence helps confine and shape the ring, working with the nearby moon Prometheus. The satellite was discovered in photographs taken by Voyager 1 in 1980, although it was not immediately recognized in every observation.
Pandora is irregularly shaped and heavily cratered. It is only a few dozen kilometres across, making it far smaller than Saturn’s major moons such as Titan, Rhea, and Iapetus. Its name comes from Pandora in Greek mythology, linking the astronomical object to the familiar Pandora story.
This moon is not the source of the mythological phrase “Pandora’s box.” Instead, astronomers use mythological names for many planetary satellites. Saturn’s moon Prometheus, which helps shepherd the F ring, is likewise named after a figure from Greek mythology.