SATURN’S mysterious glow may finally have an explanation thanks to recent observations.
A new study suggests Saturn’s winds may be responsible for its glowing auroras.
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Winds on Saturn can reach over 1,000 miles per hour.
They’re now also thought to be responsible for stunning auroras that have been pictured in the planet’s atmosphere.
The first Saturn aurora was officially observed in 1979 by the Pioneer 11 spacecraft.
Nasa’s Voyager 1 and 2 later made similar observations.
The auroras we get here on Earth are due to disturbances in the magnetic field.
They’re greenish in color and the most famous example is probably the Northern Lights.
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Auroras on Saturn are usually purple and red.
The color can look different on images depending on what method was used to capture the photo.
It was previously thought that Saturn’s auroras occurred in a similar way to how they do here on Earth – through an interaction between solar particles and the magnetic field.
However, a team of scientists is proposing that it’s actually the extreme winds on Saturn that cause the large majority of the amazing light displays.
The Sun and Saturn’s magnetic field may not actually have much to do with the phenomenon.
Theses observations were made at the W. M. Keck Observatory.
The scientists used an instrument called the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSPEC) to observe changes in Saturn’s atmosphere.
They published their unique findings in the Geophysical Research Letters.
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In other news, Nasa’s Curiosity rover has discovered a strange rock on Mars that looks just like a flower or a piece of coral here on Earth.
The US space agency revealed a stunning image of an unusual ‘space triangle’ it was able to capture with the Hubble Space Telescope.
And, astronomers have observed a red giant star dying in real-time for the first time ever.
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