The Dancing Auroras of Saturn

What drives auroras on Saturn? To help find out, scientists have sorted
through hundreds of infrared images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft
for other purposes, trying to find enough aurora images to correlate changes
and make movies. Once made, some movies clearly show that Saturnian
auroras can change not only with the angle of the Sun, but also as the planet
rotates. Furthermore, some auroral changes appear related to waves in Saturn's
magnetosphere likely caused by Saturn's moons. Pictured above, a false-colored
image taken in 2007 shows Saturn in three bands of infrared light. The rings
reflect relatively blue sunlight, while the planet itself glows in comparatively
low energy red. A band of southern aurora in visible in green. Inspection of
many more Saturnian images may well lead to an even better understanding
of both Saturn's and Earth's auroras.