Discovery of Saturn?s auroral heartbeat

An international team of scientists led by Dr Jonathan Nichols of the University of Leicester has discovered that Saturn?s aurora, an ethereal ultraviolet glow which illuminates Saturn?s upper atmosphere near the poles, pulses roughly once per Saturnian day.


Auroras, more commonly known as the ?northern lights? on Earth, are caused when charged particles in space are funnelled along a planet?s magnetic field into the planet?s upper atmosphere near the poles, whereupon they impac [...]

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