Hubble Captures First Pictures of Auroras on Uranus [View all]

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By Adam Mann Email Author April 13, 2012 | 1:38 pm |




NASA’s Hubble space telescope has captured the first images of auroras on the ice giant Uranus.

Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, is an oddball world. At some point in its past, the planet appears to have been knocked on its side, so now its “North Pole” sits where the equator on most planets is located.

The newly observed auroras — seen as tiny white dots in the image above — underscore just how strange Uranus really is.

Auroras, also known as the Northern Lights, appear on Earth when the solar wind – a stream of charged particles emanating from the sun — interacts with our planet’s magnetic field. While terrestrial auroras appear as giant green curtains of light and may last hours, the auroras seen recently on Uranus were relatively small and stuck around only a few minutes.

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