More than a billion kilometers from Earth, ghostly auroras shimmer at the poles of Saturn. A thousand images of this ghostly light show, recorded by the Cassini spacecraft over two Saturnian days — just under 11 Earth hours — have now been turned into a movie. An international team of researchers will present their findings September 24 at the European Planetary Science Conference in Rome.
Auroras on Saturn have an origin similar to that of Earth’s northern and southern lights. Charged particles from the solar wind travel along the planet’s magnetic fields, which are concentrated in polar regions. The particles crash into electrically charged gas, or plasma, in the upper atmosphere at the poles and emit light. Saturn’s auroras can also be generated as its moons move through the planet’s plasma.
Scientists hope the movies may illuminate the assortment of auroral features on Saturn and why they vary.
Auroras on Saturn from Science News on Vimeo.
Changes in Saturn’s auroral region are shown over 20 hours — just under two Saturnian days — in this video assembled from images taken in 2007 by the Cassini spacecraft’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer.
Credit: U. of Leicester, U. of Arizona, JPL/NASA
