The Saturn moon discovered in Voyager 1 photographs in 1980 was later named Pandora. Voyager 1 imaging revealed the small satellite near Saturn’s narrow F ring, and the International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1985.
Pandora is an irregular satellite with an estimated mean radius of about 40.7 kilometers. It acts as an outer shepherd of Saturn’s F ring, while Prometheus shepherds the ring from the inner side. Their gravitational interactions help maintain the ring’s complex structure.
Pandora is not the same object as the asteroid 55 Pandora, which was discovered in the nineteenth century. The moon’s name comes from Greek mythology, following a longstanding convention of naming many planetary satellites after mythological figures.