Voyager 1 discovered Pandora, a small shepherd moon of Saturn’s F ring, in 1980.
Pandora is an irregular satellite of Saturn. It was discovered in photographs taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft during its Saturn encounter in 1980. The moon is associated with Saturn’s narrow F ring, where its gravity helps influence the ring’s structure. Prometheus, another small moon, acts as the other commonly named shepherd of the F ring.
Voyager 1 reached Saturn in November 1980 after its earlier encounter with Jupiter. The spacecraft’s imaging system revealed several faint satellites and ring details that could not be observed clearly from Earth.
Saturn’s moon Pandora should not be confused with 55 Pandora, an asteroid in the main belt, or with the fictional moon in the film Avatar. The shared name comes from Greek mythology, but these objects have completely different physical locations and histories.