Chalk up one more mind-blowingly beautiful Saturn image to the Cassini spacecraft. The fruitful mission beamed home this stunner as part of a video of the auroras on the sixth planet.
Auroras on Saturn form like those on Earth, when charged particles in the solar wind stream down the planet's magnetic field towards its poles, where they excite gas in the upper atmosphere to glow. Some auroras on the ringed planet are also triggered when some of its moons, which are electrically conducting, move through the charged gas surrounding Saturn. [New Scientist]
