NASA Cassini Mission to Saturn patch.
July 31, 2017
Auroras Over Saturn Seen by Cassini Spacecraft
NASA's Cassini spacecraft gazed toward high southern latitudes near Saturn's south pole to observe ghostly curtains of dancing light -- Saturn's southern auroras, or southern lights. These natural light displays at the planet's poles are created by charged particles raining down into the upper atmosphere, making gases there glow. The dark area at the top of this scene is Saturn's night side. The auroras rotate from left to right, curving around the planet as Saturn rotates over about 70 minutes, compressed here into a movie sequence of about five seconds. For more information about this clip, visit https://go.nasa.gov/2uFOSPw. Video Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Image above: Auroras Over Saturn Seen by Cassini Spacecraft. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org and ESA's website: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens
Image (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/JPL.
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