September 27, 2010
The constellations may be old, but the person celebrating beneath them is gloriously new by cosmic standards.
The Dancing Auroras of Saturn
Birthday · September 27, 2010
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APOD published September 27, 2010. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What drives auroras on Saturn? To help find out, scientists have sorted through hundreds of infrared images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft for other purposes, trying to find enough aurora images to correlate changes and make movies. Once made, some movies clearly show that Saturnian auroras can change not only with the angle of the Sun, but also as the planet rotates. Furthermore, some auroral changes appear related to waves in Saturn's magnetosphere likely caused by Saturn's moons. Pictured above, a false-colored image taken in 2007 shows Saturn in three bands of infrared light. The rings reflect relatively blue sunlight, while the planet itself glows in comparatively low energy red. A band of southern aurora in visible in green. Inspection of many more Saturnian images may well lead to an even better understanding of both Saturn's and Earth's auroras.