NASA has released its most recent image of Saturn and its rings, a strip of an infrared image 340,000 miles across, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, according to a press release.
The inner D ring, as well as the outer F, E and G rings can harder to see because they are nearly transparent. The image was taken with the sun backlighting the planet, making those rings harder to see because they are made up of smaller particles that do not reflect light very well.
On the other hand, the B ring - wide and in the middle - can be easily spotted through telescopes on Earth because of its large chunky water ice particles. This ring appears darker in this image because the large particles block the sunlight behind them.
"Looking at the Saturn system when it is backlit by the sun gives scientists a kind of inside-out view of Saturn that we don't normally see," said Matt Hedman, a participating scientist based at the University of Idaho. "The parts of Saturn's rings that are bright when you look at them from backyard telescopes on Earth are dark, and other parts that are typically dark glow brightly in this view."
The infrared also displays thermal radiation, or brightness based on how hot the object is. In a normal image, the face of the planet would appear dimly lit, as its source of light is behind it. In the infrared image, the planet glows red because of its heat.
"Cassini's long-term residency at the ringed planet means we've been able to observe change over nearly half a Saturn-year (one Saturn-year is equal to almost 30 Earth-years) with a host of different tools," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Earth looks different from season to season and Saturn does, too. We can't wait to see how those seasonal changes affect the dance of icy particles as we continue to observe in Saturn's rings with all of Cassini's different 'eyes.'"
