Pandora is a moon of Saturn that helps shape Saturn’s narrow F ring.
The moon was discovered in photographs taken by Voyager 1 in 1980, and its discovery was announced in 1981. Pandora is classified as a shepherd satellite because its gravity helps influence the structure of a ring. In the F-ring system, Pandora works with the nearby moon Prometheus, whose orbit lies on the other side of the ring.
Pandora and Prometheus are named after figures from Greek mythology, continuing the convention used for many satellites of the outer planets. The astronomical names are especially fitting because the two moons are associated with the same mythological family and with the famous Pandora story.
Saturn’s Pandora should not be confused with asteroid 55 Pandora or with the mythological character herself. It is a small, irregularly shaped object, and spacecraft images show a body marked by craters rather than a smooth, Earth-like world. Its importance comes largely from its gravitational relationship with Saturn’s ring system.