Which planet’s moon is named Pandora in the official astronomical naming system?

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Saturn is the planet whose moon is named Pandora.

Pandora is a small moon of Saturn discovered in 1980 in images taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. It is an outer shepherd satellite of Saturn’s narrow F ring, working gravitationally with the moon Prometheus to help shape and confine the ring’s material. The pairing is an intentional mythological reference: Pandora and Prometheus are linked in Greek mythology.

The moon is irregularly shaped and has a heavily cratered surface. It is much smaller than Saturn’s major moons, and its low gravity makes it an important example of the small bodies that influence planetary ring systems.

Pandora is sometimes confused with Prometheus because the two moons orbit near the F ring and were discovered around the same period. Prometheus is the inner shepherd moon; Pandora is the outer one. Both orbit Saturn, not Jupiter, Uranus, or Neptune.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Oct. 2026

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