What is the official number of Pandora, the moon of Saturn discovered in Voyager 1 images?

Pandora, the moon of Saturn discovered in Voyager 1 images, is officially designated Saturn XVII.

Voyager 1 photographed Pandora in 1980, and the discovery was announced in the early 1980s. Pandora is a small, irregular satellite orbiting near Saturn’s F ring. Its gravity helps influence the ring’s structure, making it one of the small moons known as a shepherd satellite.

The moon’s name comes from Pandora in Greek mythology. Its neighboring shepherd moon Prometheus is likewise named after a mythological Titan. Pandora is not the same object as the asteroid 55 Pandora, which orbits the Sun in the main asteroid belt.

Astronomical designations can be confusing because moons have both names and Roman-numeral labels. Saturn XVII identifies Pandora’s position in the historical numbering sequence of Saturn’s moons; it does not mean Pandora is Saturn’s seventeenth moon by distance from the planet.