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.

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

Publication: February 16, 2005