NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph took a series of snapshots of Saturn's aurora dancing in the sky. The ultraviolet images were taken on Jan. 8, 2004. This dissolve sequence shows the aurora appearing as a ring of light circling the planet's polar ring. Collisions with atoms and molecules make the gases in the planet's atmosphere glow in visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light.

Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Clarke (Boston Univ.) and G. Bacon (STScI)

Publication: February 16, 2005