images

Aurora borealis on Jupiter

by

Nasa/Novapix

Reference

a-jup02-80001

Date

2006-10-02

This ultraviolet image of Jupiter was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on 26 November 1998. The bright emissions above the dark blue background are auroral lights, similar to those seen above the Earth's polar regions. The aurorae are curtains of light sulting from high energy electrons following the planet's magnetic field into the upper atmosphere, where collisions with atmospheric atoms and molecules produce the observed light.