New Delhi:
US space agency NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has sent a breath-taking picture showing dawn on Saturn. The image reveals a silver of the sunlit atmosphere of Saturn as its icy rings stretch across the foreground as a dark band.
In its Grand Finale, the NASA Cassini probe is performing several daring and death-defying dives. The mission is coming to an end after a 20-year-long journey in space.
Cassini has captured the un-illuminated side of Saturn rings from seven degrees below the ring plane. On March 31, the wide-angle camera atop the Cassini spacecraft captured the picture in green light. The Cassini was about one million kilometres from Saturn when the picture was clicked.
The NASA Cassini spacecraft will plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere after carrying out 22 dives between the icy rings of the planet.
In its final days, the Cassini spacecraft is going closer to Saturn than ever before and is proving amazing images and new insights into the planet’s interior structure and the origins of the rings, said NASA.
During its final plunge into Saturn on September 15, Cassini will send data about the composition of the atmosphere until its signal is lost.
NASA revealed earlier this week that its opportunity Mars rover is examining the edge of a crater on the red planet that may once have been a lake of liquid water.
Rocks at the edge of Endeavour Crater were found that were either eroded in place by wind or were transported by flood.
The features were seen just outside the crater rim's crest above "Perseverance Valley," which is carved into the inner slope of the rim.
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.@CassiniSaturn craft saw this sliver of Saturn's sunlit atmosphere as the icy rings stretch across the foreground: https://t.co/VY7JhYznhj pic.twitter.com/CMcjx1bgGI
— NASA (@NASA) June 26, 2017
