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Saturn Shapes Up and Bends for Cassini's Camera Lens

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NASA has released new images taken from its Cassini spacecraft showing Saturn's rings in a shapely new light.

The spacecraft has taken the pictures more than 1.1 million miles away from the planet at a 112 degree angle.

According to NASA, the images were captured in visible light with a narrow angle camera in June. The rings, described as A and F, appear to bend where they intersect with the planet's border. The atmosphere in space acts like a lens.

"In its upper regions, Saturn's atmosphere absorbs some of the light reflected by the rings as it passes through," according to NASA.

"But absorption is not the only thing that happens to that light. As it passes from space to the atmosphere and back out into space towards Cassini's cameras, its path is refracted, or bent."

"The result is that the ring's image appears to be warped."

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The images have been captured during the Cassini mission which is a project led by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in their hunt for alien life on Saturn and its many moons.

The Cassini spacecraft is not only on the lookout for alien life — but the mysterious, Planet Nine.

Research collated from a previous Cassini mission suggests that the most likely region home to Planet Nine is in a patch in the solar system near the Aires and Pisces constellations.

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