This image from NASA’s Cassini robotic orbiter is one of the highest-resolution views ever taken of Pandora, Saturn’s F ring shepherd moon.
This is one of Cassini’s closest views to date of Pandora, a small, inner moon of Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.
Pandora, also known as Saturn XVII, is a small moon — just 52 miles (84 km) across.
It was discovered in 1980 from images taken by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft.
Originally called S/1980 S26, Pandora was renamed in 1985. In Greek mythology, Pandora was a work of art who was transformed into a human by the gods.
Pandora orbits 88,048 miles (141,700 km) away from Saturn, beyond Saturn’s thin F ring, taking 15.1 hours to go around the planet.
It has an irregular shape and surface appearance. One explanation for its elongated shape and low density is that it may have formed by gathering ring particles onto a dense core.
Craters formed on Pandora by impacts appear to be covered by debris, a process that probably happens rapidly in a geologic sense.
The grooves and small ridges on Pandora suggest that fractures affect the overlying smooth material.
Cassini captured this image during its closest-ever flyby of Pandora on Dec. 18, 2016, during the third of its grazing passes by the outer edges of Saturn’s main rings.
The image was taken in green light with Cassini’s Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) – narrow angle camera at a distance of 25,200 miles (40,500 km) from Pandora.
