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Are Saturn`s rings bending? NASA releases strange image from Cassini (Pic inside)
In the image, which was released on Monday, Saturn`s A and F rings appear bizarrely warped where they intersect the planet`s limb, whose atmosphere acts here like a very big lens.
New Delhi: In a latest, NASA has released a new image of Saturn's rings looking a little strange and bent.
In the image, which was released on Monday, Saturn's A and F rings appear bizarrely warped where they intersect the planet's limb, whose atmosphere acts here like a very big lens.
“In its upper regions, Saturn’s atmosphere absorbs some of the light reflected by the rings as it passes through. But absorption is not the only thing that happens to that light. As it passes from space to the atmosphere and back out into space towards Cassini’s cameras, its path is refracted, or bent. The result is that the ring's image appears warped,” says NASA.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 9, 2016.
The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) from the rings and at a Sun-rings-spacecraft.