Aurora around Saturns North Pole

Aurora around Saturn’s North Pole

Image Credit:
NASA,
ESA,
Hubble,
OPAL Program,
J. DePasquale
(STScI),
L. Lamy
(Obs. Paris)

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 auroras and optical images of
Saturn’s clouds and rings, all taken 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.