An artist’s concept image of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft final dive over Saturn shared as real - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
June 2, 2021
An image is being shared on social media claiming it as the closest picture of planet Saturn inside its rings. This post claim that the photo was shot by Nasa’s Cassini spacecraft two weeks ago. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: The closest picture of Saturn shot by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.
Fact: The photo shared in the post is an artist’s concept image of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft final dive in April 2017. The concept shows an over-the-shoulder view of the Cassini spacecraft making its final dives over Saturn. It is not a real photo of planet Saturn. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, a similar photo is found in an article published by the ‘Space.com’ website. This article mentions it as an artist’s concept image of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft making its final dives over Saturn. This article credited the photo to NASA.
When searched for this photo using the keywords, we found the same picture on the ‘NASA’ website. The description of the photo states, ‘This artist’s concept shows an over-the-shoulder view of Cassini making one of its Grand Finale dives over Saturn’. This photo was published on 06 April 2017. The same image with a similar description was published on the ‘Fine Art America’ website. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the image shared in the post is an artist’s concept image of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, not a real picture. More such graphics images can be seen on NASA’s website.
To sum it up, an artist’s concept image of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft final dive over Saturn falsely shared as a real one.