A celestial light show has been captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft as it explores ringed Saturn and its entourage of moons.
A new movie and images have been made using spacecraft data that show Saturn’s shimmering aurora over a two-day period.
“Saturn’s auroras are very complex and we are only just beginning to understand all the factors involved,” said Tom Stallard, lead scientist on a joint visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument on Cassini, as well as a collaborative magnetometer onboard the probe.
“This study will provide a broader view of the wide variety of different auroral features that can be seen, and will allow us to better understand what controls these changes in appearance,” Stallard added.
Previous data from Cassini have contributed to a number of detailed snapshots of the aurora. But understanding the overall nature of the auroral region requires a huge number of observations, which can be difficult because Cassini observation time close to Saturn is in high demand, Stallard said.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
JPL manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.
The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Stallard’s work on Saturn’s auroras is funded by the Science and Technologies Facilities Council, Swindon, United Kingdom.
Visual feast here! Check out the new, eye-catching false-color images and video that are available online at:
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By LD/CSE