The official designation of Pandora, one of Saturn’s moons, is Saturn XVII.
Pandora was discovered in photographs taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in October 1980. It is a small, irregular satellite that orbits just outside Saturn’s F ring and helps influence the ring’s structure along with the moon Prometheus.
The moon was named after Pandora, the figure from Greek mythology associated with the container that released troubles into the world. Its designation, Saturn XVII, reflects the traditional Roman-numeral system used for Saturn’s numbered satellites.
Pandora is only about 81 kilometres across at its longest dimension and has a low-density, irregular body. Voyager images revealed its role as a shepherd moon, although its gravitational effects are more complicated than those of a simple single-moon boundary.