Pandora is the Saturn moon discovered in 1980 that shares its name with the woman in the Greek myth.
Voyager 1 images revealed Pandora in October 1980, during the spacecraft’s encounter with Saturn. The moon is a small, irregular satellite located near Saturn’s F ring. It is classified as an outer shepherd satellite because its gravity helps influence the ring’s particles, working with the nearby moon Prometheus.
Pandora’s name was assigned because Saturn’s moons are traditionally named after figures from mythology. The pairing with Prometheus is especially appropriate: both moons are associated with the same Greek mythological story, and both affect the F ring. Prometheus orbits closer to Saturn than Pandora does.
Pandora should not be confused with Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, or with the fictional world Pandora in the film Avatar. The astronomical Pandora is a small natural satellite, not a planet, asteroid, or invented setting.
Its discovery also illustrates how planetary science changed during the Voyager era, when close spacecraft images revealed numerous small moons that could not be seen clearly from Earth.