Friday 1 October 2010

Saturn Aurora


Image courtesy NASA/JPL/University of Leicester/University of Arizona

Hundreds of miles tall, curtains of aurorae undulate above Saturn's south polar clouds in a
composite of near-infrared images released Friday by NASA's Cassini orbiter. (See pictures of earthly auroras generated by a September solar storm.)
In this false-color picture, aurorae are bright green, sunlight reflected off Saturn's rings and high-altitude haze are blue, and heat emissions from the planet's interior glow deep red. Get the full story on National Geographic's Breaking Orbit blog >>