Pandora, the small shepherd moon associated with Saturn’s F ring, orbits Saturn. It travels outside the F ring and works with the nearby moon Prometheus to influence the ring’s narrow, changing structure.
NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft discovered Pandora in 1980. Its irregular, heavily cratered surface and very small size place it among Saturn’s minor moons. Pandora and Prometheus are called shepherd moons because their gravitational effects help confine or sculpt material in Saturn’s ring system.
Pandora is not the only astronomical object named for the mythological figure. The name is also used by asteroid 55 Pandora, while Saturn’s moon belongs to a much larger planetary satellite system.
Saturn’s rings are made mainly of water ice particles, with sizes ranging from tiny grains to much larger fragments. The interactions of moons such as Pandora make the ring system an active subject of planetary science.