Flat Earthers, in addition to believing the world is flat, also believe that every single image of earth taken from space has been photoshopped. And honest to Christ, looking at this new photo of Saturn, I'm starting to wonder myself.
Look at this image: look at it. It doesn't look real! It looks like a model — plastic, CGI or otherwise.
But there's a reason why these images tend to look so weird. NASA doesn't head into space with an iPhone to take these shots. They tend to be the result of information gleamed from a number of different source — it's not something you just snap and upload to instagram.
NASA probes don't have traditional colour imaging sensors. They have a monochrome sensor that measures the difference in brightness. The probe applies different filters on top of that to only capture light at different wavelengths, then NASA stitches multiple images together and applies colour filters on top of each in photoshop to get different colours.
So yeah, that's part of its 'fakeness'. Also the fact that it's a heavenly body suspended in the void. Those things tend to look a bit fake.
Last night NASA's multi-billion dollar Cassini–Huygens spacecraft crashed into Saturn. It was a spectacular end to a 20-year mission that has provided invaluable information abut the ringed planet and its moons. Here's what you need to know, along with a stream to the live event.