James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar features the fictional moon Pandora.
In Avatar, Pandora orbits the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri star system. The moon is home to the Na’vi, a tall blue humanoid species whose environment is portrayed as biologically interconnected. Humans visit Pandora to mine unobtanium and pursue military and corporate objectives.
The film’s Pandora is unrelated to the jar in the Greek myth, although Cameron chose a name associated with a world containing unfamiliar wonders and danger. The movie’s title and setting became especially prominent because of its groundbreaking use of computer-generated imagery and stereoscopic 3D.
Avatar was released in December 2009 and became one of the highest-grossing films in cinema history. Its fictional moon is therefore a major modern use of “Pandora,” but it should not be confused with the mythological woman or the 1929 German film.