Aurora around Saturns North Pole
Explanation:
Are Saturn's auroras like Earth's?
To help answer this question, the
Hubble Space Telescope and the
Cassini spacecraft monitored Saturn's North Pole simultaneously during
Cassini's final orbits
around the gas giant in September 2017.
During this time,
Saturn's tilt caused its North Pole to be
clearly visible from Earth.
The featured image is a composite of
ultraviolet images of aurora and optical images of
Saturn's clouds and rings, all taken recently by Hubble.
Like on Earth, Saturn's northern auroras can make
total or partial rings around the pole.
Unlike on Earth, however,
Saturn's auroras are frequently spirals --
and more likely to peak in brightness just before midnight and dawn.
In contrast to
Jupiter's auroras,
Saturn's auroras appear better related to connecting
Saturn's internal magnetic field to the nearby, variable,
solar wind.
Saturn's southern auroras
were similarly imaged back in 2004 when the
planet's South Pole was clearly visible to Earth.
Teachers:
APOD in the Classroom
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
