Hubble Views Saturn's Aurorae [1080p]

In January and March 2009, Hubble took advantage of a rare opportunity to record Saturn when its rings are edge-on, resulting in a unique movie featuring both of the giant planet's poles. Saturn is only in this position every 15 years and this favourable orientation has allowed a sustained study of Saturn's almost symmetric northern and southern lights. At the same time Saturn was approaching its equinox so both poles were equally illuminated by the Sun's rays.

These recent observations have allowed researchers to monitor the behaviour of both Saturn's poles in the same shot over a sustained period of time and to study the planet's northern and southern aurorae simultaneously. Given the rarity of such an event, this new footage will likely be the last and best equinox movie that Hubble captures of our planetary neighbour. Besides the double aurora show, the movie also features an added bonus, as some of Saturn's moons, or satellites, are seen passing the disc of their parent planet.

credit: NASA, ESA and Jonathan Nichols (University of Leicester)

source: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/html/heic1003b.html

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Saturn
• northern lights
• southern lights
• aurora
• hubble space telescope
• NASA
• ESA

[phongbong]

Saturns the craziest planet we got, anyone see the weird hexagon that forms at the top? Crazy!

[djxatlanta]

It's a pretty cool atmospheric effect -- it was discovered 30 years ago by the Voyager spacecraft.

[DonMiguelMexicanHero]

stunning.... is that a certain soundtrack or just some synth, generated in a certain way?

[djxatlanta]

It's one of YouTube's stock audio tracks that one can superimpose on top of video uploads. I thought it went well with the flickering aurora of Saturn! :-)

[ZomgZomg007]

would love to know wtf goes out there in space....too bad we are all too busy killing each other -.-

[Regurtless]

I like the spooky music

[okuma0kuma]

@djxatlanta

why what words did i put in your mouth

! hmm was unaware audio swap existed 10 months ago maybe you edited video either way youtube search the sound of saturn's rings will bring up 160+ videos on what i commented about ,i love time stamps ... dont you ?

[djxatlanta]

@okuma0kuma - no -- it's stock music from YouTube -- I browsed around their stock library and chose a track to accompany the video that sounded eerie... don't put words in my mouth.

[SuzanBlackDragon]

@Annelou25 Moon

[SuzanBlackDragon]

W 0:19 słychać strzały!

[viliussmproductions]

@ZomgZomg007 words of wisdom!

[sks786]

very good!!!

[Annelou25]

Thanks for your quick, complet and nice reponse. ;-)