Gravity’s Rainbow

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Saturn’s rings display their subtle colors in this view captured on Aug. 22, 2009, by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The particles that make up the rings range in size from smaller than a grain of sand to as large as mountains, and are mostly made of water ice. The exact nature of the material responsible for bestowing color on the rings remains a matter of intense debate among scientists.

Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. Cassini's narrow-angle camera took the images at a distance of approximately 1.27 million miles (2.05 million kilometers) from the center of the rings.

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A NASA spacecraft has revealed a new view of Saturn: The first natural-color image of the gas giant from space, in which Saturn, its moons and rings, and Earth, Venus and Mars, are all visible.