The official designation of Pandora, the small moon of Saturn discovered in Voyager 1 photographs, is Saturn XVII.
Pandora is an inner satellite of Saturn and acts as an outer shepherd of the planet’s narrow F ring, together with the moon Prometheus. Voyager 1 images revealed the moon in 1980, and astronomers initially identified it as a new satellite. It was later named Pandora after the figure from Greek mythology.
The Roman-numeral designation follows the order in which Saturn’s moons were numbered as they were recognized. Pandora is Saturn XVII, meaning the seventeenth moon assigned a Roman-numeral designation in that system. Its mythological name is separate from its astronomical designation.
Pandora is irregularly shaped and relatively small, with a mean diameter of roughly 81 kilometres. Its orbit lies just outside the orbit of Prometheus. The two moons’ gravitational effects help confine and shape Saturn’s F ring, making Pandora important in studies of planetary rings as well as mythology-inspired naming.