NASA's captures close-up of Saturn’s C ring

New Delhi : According to the new reports of US Agency, a dozen regions of Saturn’s C Ring are brighter than the rest of the ring; on the other hand half dozen regions are without ring material. Scientists have name it the brighter regions as ‘’plateaus’’ and the other one as ‘’gaps’’.

The reason for brighter plateaus given by scientist is that they have high particle density and reflect more light. The researchers on the other hand are not able to find out how the plateaus are created and maintained.

The image taken on January 9, 2017 in green light with the Cassini spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera, shows view towards the sunlit side of the rings from about 62 degrees above the ring plane.

The spacecraft obtained the image while approximately 194,000 miles (312,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 67 degrees. Image scale is 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) per pixel.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency.