This image taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft
of Saturn's A-ring shows the thin F-ring bracketed by its two
shepherding satellites. Because the inner moon revolves around
the planet slightly faster than the outer one, the satellites
lap each other every 25 days. This picture was taken Aug. 15,
when Voyager 2 was 10.5 million kilometers (6.6 million miles)
from Saturn. At that instant, the shepherds were less than 1,800
km. (1,100 mi.) apart; they passed each other about two hours
later. Scientists will be looking for changes in the F-ring resulting
from the close passage of the satellites. The Voyager project
is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif. (P-23911)
