Jovian-like aurorae on Saturn

Tom Stallard (), Steve Miller, Henrik Melin, Makenzie Lystrup, Stan W. H. Cowley, Emma J. Bunce, Nicholas Achilleos and Michele Dougherty
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Tom Stallard: University of Leicester
Steve Miller: Atmospheric Physics Laboratory, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Henrik Melin: Space Environment Technologies, 320 N. Halstead Street, Suite 110, Pasadena, California 91107, USA
Makenzie Lystrup: Atmospheric Physics Laboratory, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Stan W. H. Cowley: University of Leicester
Emma J. Bunce: University of Leicester
Nicholas Achilleos: Atmospheric Physics Laboratory, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Michele Dougherty: Space and Atmospheric Physics Group, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London SW7 2BW, UK

Nature, 2008, vol. 453, issue 7198, 1083-1085

Abstract: Saturn's other aurora: Jovian-like origins A new study of Saturn's auroral emissions has uncovered a secondary auroral oval, a quarter as bright as the main one. The main auroral oval was first seen in Hubble Space Telescope images more than a decade ago and its morphology has since been determined in detail, yet there is continued debate about its origins. One theory was that Saturn's auroral emissions were a hybrid between those seen on Earth, primarily formed by interaction with the solar wind, and those on Jupiter, formed by interaction with plasma flows. But the properties of the secondary oval at Saturn show it to be a weak equivalent of Jupiter's main oval, its relative dimness due to the lack of as large a source of ions as Jupiter's volcanic moon Io. Now it seems that the underlying aurora formation processes on Saturn and Jupiter are very similar, with scaling differences accounting for the differences in appearance.

Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.1038/nature07077

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