Saturn’s Pandora is a shepherd moon near the planet’s F ring.
Pandora is a small moon of Saturn that helps gravitationally influence the F ring. It is commonly described as an outer shepherd satellite, while the nearby moon Prometheus acts as the inner shepherd. Their combined gravitational effects help shape and confine the narrow ring structure.
The moon was discovered in 1980 from photographs taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. It was later observed and studied using additional spacecraft and telescopic observations. Pandora is irregularly shaped and heavily cratered, like many small outer Solar System bodies.
This astronomical Pandora is named after the figure from Greek mythology. Saturn’s moon Prometheus also shares a mythological name, creating a particularly neat pairing in the ring system. It should not be confused with Pandora, the fictional moon in Avatar.