NASA Video Captures The Aurora Passing Over Saturn

NASA has captured a pretty extraordinary video of Saturn’s southern aurora using its Cassini spacecraft.

While the footage might be grainy, and in black and white it gives us a rare glimpse of a phenomenon that has traditionally only been caught as a still photograph.

The video is a collection of 70mins worth of stills, stitched together and then condensed into just a few seconds.

In it you can clearly make out the ghostly swathes of light travelling over Saturn’s south pole with millions of stars streaking past in the background.

While we know that both Saturn and Jupiter have stunning auroras, capturing them has always been easier said than done.

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Similar to auroras that take place on Earth this phenomenon happens when electrically charged particles become caught in Saturn’s magnetic field and are then drawn down into upper atmosphere.

This stunning picture of Jupiter’s northern lights however highlights both the size and the beauty of them.

Hopefully in the future spacecraft with better imaging systems will be able to visit the planet and take even better footage without us having to make the 1.2 billion kilometre journey ourselves.

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