What are the coloured bands in this “Pale Blue Dot” picture?

Question

You can see Earth in the right most band in this image:

enter image description here

What are these bands doing in space?! Can somebody please explain the coloured bands in this image?

Given the possibility that this is an optical effect in the lenses used to take the image, a link to the original image would help. For that matter it might help to convince the commentariet around here to look for a physics explanation outside of the optics, too.

whatsisname · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-09 22:45:14Z

up vote 3 down vote accepted

From the wikipedia page about the photo: The Pale Blue Dot

The light band over Earth is an artifact of sunlight scattering in the camera's optics, resulting from the small angle between the Earth and the Sun.

edited Mar 9 '11 at 22:45

whatsisname
1031

answered Mar 8 '11 at 20:52

Kostya
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1 Answer