Cassini pics throw more light on Saturn

The international Cassini spacecraft has sent ultra-violet images of Saturn’s rings that show there is more ice towards the outer part of the planet’s halos.

The information hints at the origin and evolution of the rings, according to scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Saturn’s rings are mostly ice, but there is also other material that mission scientists have labelled “dirt”.

Two new images depict the rings in shades of turquoise and red. They were made by an instrument called the Ultra-Violet Imaging Spectrograph, UVIS for short.

The red indicates sparser ringlets believed to be made of particles that are “dirty” and possibly smaller than those in the denser, icier ringlets, which are shown in turquoise.

Researcher Joshua Colwell, a UVIS team member, created the colour-enhanced images from the ultra-violet spectra recorded by the instrument when Cassini entered orbit on June 30.

Although not what the eye would see, use of false-colour images increases contrast to bring out details, according to NASA.

Cassini entered orbit around Saturn last week after a seven-year, 2.2 billion-mile journey to the outer solar system.