The designation of Pandora, the small moon of Saturn discovered in 1980, is Saturn XVII. It is also known by the provisional designation S/1980 S 26 and the permanent name Pandora.
Voyager 1 images revealed Pandora in October 1980, when the spacecraft passed through the Saturn system. The moon is an outer shepherd satellite of Saturn’s narrow F ring and helps influence the ring’s structure together with the moon Prometheus.
Pandora is irregularly shaped and only a few dozen kilometres across. Its low density and bright, icy surface make it one of the many small bodies orbiting Saturn rather than a planet or a major spherical moon.
The name comes from Pandora in Greek mythology. Astronomical naming often draws on mythological figures, which is why Saturn’s moons include names connected with Greek and Roman stories. Saturn XVII refers to the order in which the moon was assigned a recognized Roman numeral designation.