A show at the top! Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), a series of images were taken showing the aurora borealis “floating” at Saturn’s north pole. Let’s learn more about this science story.
In 2017, over a period of seven months, the Hubble Imaging spectrograph was used to obtain this visual information. Observations were made before and after Saturn’s northern summer solsticeas the conditions offered the best viewing possible.
On Earth, we can find the Aurora Borealis, whose name takes us to the North Pole, and the Aurora Australis, which is observed around the South Pole.
But what is this natural phenomenon associated with? Considering NASA’s educational resources, on Earth, the aurora borealis is created by particles emitted by the Sun in the form of wind, also called “solar wind”. When this stream of electrically charged particles approaches our planet, it interacts with the magnetic field. The latter acts as a giant shield that protects the Earth’s environment from solar wind particles.
However, it can also trap a small fraction of them in the magnetosphere. These particles can become energized and follow the magnetic field lines to the poles of the planet. There they are able to interact with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the upper layers of the atmosphere. In this way, the sparkling and colored lights visible in the polar regions of the Earth are created.
On which other planets have auroras been observed?
As you can see, the aurora borealis is not an exclusive sight on earth. In addition to dazzling images of Saturn, they have also been discovered on other planets in the solar system, such as Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.
It should be mentioned that Saturn’s aurora borealis can be easily seen in ultraviolet wavelengths. Part of the electromagnetic spectrum that can only be studied from space. The images show a “rich” variety of emissions with localized features.
On the ringed planet, the variability of the auroras is influenced by both the solar wind and the rapid rotation of Saturn which lasts about eleven hours. Furthermore, the aurora borealis show two distinct peaks of brightness: at sunrise and before midnight. The latter, without prior information, seems specific to the interaction of the solar wind with the magnetosphere at Saturn’s summer solstice.