Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Persistent Saturnian Auroras

Persistent Saturnian Auroras: APOD: 2014 June 22 - Persistent Saturnian Auroras





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2014 June 22




See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
 the highest resolution version available.
Persistent Saturnian Auroras
Image Credit:
J. Clarke
(Boston U.) &
Z. Levay
(STScI),
ESA,
NASA
Explanation:
Are Saturn's auroras like Earth's?

To help answer this question, the
Hubble Space Telescope and the
Cassini spacecraft monitored Saturn's South Pole
simultaneously as
Cassini closed in
on the gas giant in January 2004.

Hubble snapped images in
ultraviolet light, while Cassini recorded
radio emissions and monitored the
solar wind.

Like on Earth, Saturn's auroras
make total or partial rings around
magnetic poles.

Unlike on Earth, however,
Saturn's auroras persist for days, as opposed to only minutes on
Earth.

Although surely created by
charged particles entering the atmosphere,
Saturn's auroras also appear to be
more closely modulated by the
solar wind than either Earth's or
Jupiter's auroras.

The above sequence shows three Hubble images of
Saturn
each taken two days apart.




Tomorrow's picture: lasing space


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