Beautiful aurora at Saturn's north pole

The images taken from the Hubble Space Telescope of the US Aeronautics Agency (NASA) show that the beautiful aurora of Saturn appears at the North pole both before and after the summer solstice.

Photo: NASA

The image of Saturn aurora was also recorded by the Cassini spacecraft when it ended its mission to explore Saturn, plunging into the planet and igniting. On Earth, aurora is formed by the planet's magnetic field interacting with the solar wind. The charged particles emitted from the Sun interact with oxygen and nitrogen in the Earth's atmosphere to create a brilliant light show.

Saturn's aurora and other planets also formed in the same manner, but because Saturn's atmosphere is mostly hydrogen, the aurora can only be observed with ultraviolet light. Saturn aurora reaches its maximum brightness at dawn and just before midnight, but most clearly at midnight.