Hubble Spots Auroras on Uranus

Posted on by Simon in Blog, Space

What Hubble can see these days is amazing!

This is a composite image of Uranus by Voyager 2 and two different observations made by Hubble — one for the ring and one for the auroras.

Ever since Voyager 2 beamed home spectacular images of the planets in the 1980s, planet-lovers have been hooked on auroras on other planets. Auroras are caused by streams of charged particles like electrons that come from various origins such as solar winds, the planetary ionosphere, and moon volcanism. They become caught in powerful magnetic fields and are channeled into the upper atmosphere, where their interactions with gas particles, such as oxygen or nitrogen, set off spectacular bursts of light.

via Hubble Spots Auroras on Uranus | NASA

Simon 🙂

No ownership claimed on images or material – Credit NASA

Published by Simon

My name is Simon and I create stories and art and pictures. Things just come to me, ideas and expressions and that what my blogs are about. My spaces to express and reach out to the world.

34 thoughts on “Hubble Spots Auroras on Uranus”

  4. I plan on writing on space flight at my website. Right now I’m discussing why science fiction movies outnumber and out-influence fantasy, which seems rather unfair, to me. If you’d like to check it out, go to:
    http://www.templeofsorcery.wordpress.com
    I need commentators, Simon, if you’d care to join in. And I still have an interesting in joining your website. Send me an email if you have it worked out. My email is:
    thegodwithpurpleeyes@gmail.com
    Hope to hear from you, website or addy!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. Yeah. Exactly! Things like this often blow my mind. We think of the sun as being far away from us, and it’s 150 million km or so. Now we see aurora on a planet 3 billion km away. And that is certainly far, but the Oort cloud could be as far as a lightyear. It’s amazing how far things reach.

        Liked by 1 person

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