Image of Saturn in Cassini spacecraft’s ‘final moments’ isn’t what it seems

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn for greater than 10 years, capturing pictures of its rings and moons in never-before-seen element. Since at least 2019, posts on social media have shared a supposed {photograph} taken by Cassini in its ultimate moments.

A viral TikTok video revealed on Dec. 21, 2024, claimed the picture was the “final picture taken by the Cassini spacecraft earlier than its disintegration in Saturn’s environment.” On the time of this publication, it had been seen greater than 3.6 million instances. 

Nonetheless, the above picture was an inventive rendering of what Cassini might have seen, not an precise {photograph} it captured. Due to this, we have rated this declare miscaptioned.

NASA published the saturated yellow-hued picture on April 6, 2017, noting it was an artist’s idea displaying “an over-the-shoulder view of Cassini making certainly one of its Grand Finale dives over Saturn.” Different images within the assortment present imagined renderings captured by Cassini throughout its 22 orbits between Saturn and its rings, earlier than plunging into the planet on its ultimate mission in 2017. 

(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA wrote that Cassini was “probably the most bold efforts ever mounted in planetary exploration” as a “refined robotic spacecraft despatched to review Saturn and its complicated system of rings and moons in unprecedented element.” It described the mission thusly:

Cassini carried a probe known as Huygens to the Saturn system. The probe, which was constructed by ESA, parachuted to the floor of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, in January 2005—essentially the most distant touchdown thus far in our photo voltaic system. Huygens returned spectacular pictures and different science outcomes throughout a two-and-a-half-hour descent via Titan’s hazy environment, earlier than coming to relaxation amid rounded cobbles of ice on a floodplain damp with liquid methane.

Cassini accomplished its preliminary four-year mission in June 2008 and earned two mission extensions that enabled the workforce to delve even deeper into Saturn’s mysteries. Key discoveries throughout its 13 years at Saturn included a world ocean with sturdy indications of hydrothermal exercise inside Enceladus and liquid methane seas on Titan. The mission ended on Sept. 15, 2017.

Cassini launched into its “Grand Finale” in April 2017, throughout which it dove weekly via the 1,200-mile-wide hole between Saturn and its rings. 

The precise pictures taken by cameras aboard Cassini are a lot much less detailed and dramatic than the renderings.

Beneath, the last photo taken by the spacecraft is a monochrome view taking a look at Saturn’s evening facet as it’s lit by mirrored mild from the rings and exhibits the situation the place the spacecraft would crash-land hours later. 

(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA described the picture as:

A pure shade view, created utilizing pictures taken with purple, inexperienced and blue spectral filters, can also be supplied (Determine B, proper). The imaging cameras obtained this view at roughly the identical time that Cassini’s visible and infrared mapping spectrometer made its personal observations of the affect space within the thermal infrared.

This location — the location of Cassini’s atmospheric entry — was at the moment on the evening facet of the planet, however would rotate into daylight by the point Cassini made its ultimate dive into Saturn’s higher environment, ending its outstanding 13-year exploration of Saturn.

The view was acquired on Sept. 14, 2017 at 19:59 UTC (spacecraft occasion time). The view was taken in seen mild utilizing the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle digicam at a distance of 394,000 miles (634,000 kilometers) from Saturn. Picture scale is about 11 miles (17 kilometers).

A gallery of 395,927 pictures accommodates the complete report of Cassini’s uncooked pictures taken from Feb. 20, 2004, to the top of the mission on Sept. 15, 2017. The image below, for instance, was captured on Sept. 13, 2017, and exhibits Saturn’s rings. 

(NASA)

One other black-and-white picture taken on Sept. 12, 2017, exhibits Saturn’s moon Titan. 

(NASA)

Snopes has appeared into different claims surrounding area pictures, together with images mentioned to point out Helix Nebula captured by NASA’s Hubble Telescope, a picture of an astronaut performing the first untethered space walk, and a deeply hued picture that supposedly showed the planet Jupiter.

Sources