Auroras Over Earth: Amazing Northern Lights Photos from Space

The Aurora Australis or Southern Lights, photographed by one of the Expedition 37 crew members on the International Space Station as the orbital complex flew over Tasmania on Oct. 30, 2013.

The Expedition 32 crew onboard the International Space Station, flying an altitude of approximately 240 miles, recorded a series of images of Aurora Australis, also known as the Southern Lights, on July 15, 2012.

This picture, recorded by one of the Expedition 31 crew members aboard the International Space Station, features Aurora Australis with star streaks while the vehicle was over the South Pacific Ocean. Image taken on May 22, 2012.

Aurora Australis, seen at right on Earth's horizon, and daybreak (left) highlight this photograph taken by one of the Expedition 30 crew members on March 6, 2012 aboard the International Space Station.

The northern lights are a spectacular night sky phenomenon when viewed from Earth, but from space they transform into something truly amazing.

See amazing photos of the Earth's auroras as seen by astronauts on the International Space Station in these images released by NASA.

You can see the original NASA aurora gallery here.

NASA's Cassini: Auroras over Saturn's north and south poles

Ultraviolet and infrared images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft and Hubble Space Telescope show active and quiet auroras at Saturn's north and south poles. 

Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech /University of Colorado/Central Arizona College /ESA /University of Leicester /JPL-Caltech /University of Arizona /Lancaster University

NASA trained several pairs of eyes on Saturn as the planet put on a dancing light show at its poles.

While NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, orbiting around Earth, was able to observe the northern auroras in ultraviolet wavelengths, NASA's Cassini spacecraft, orbiting around Saturn, got complementary close-up views in infrared, visible-light and ultraviolet wavelengths.

Cassini could also see northern and southern parts of Saturn that don't face Earth.

The result is a kind of step-by-step choreography detailing how the auroras move, showing the complexity of these auroras and how scientists can connect an outburst from the Sun and its effect on the magnetic environment at Saturn.

Jonathan Nichols

"Saturn's auroras can be fickle—you may see fireworks, you may see nothing," said Jonathan Nichols of the University of Leicester in England, who led the work on the Hubble images.

"In 2013, we were treated to a veritable smorgasbord of dancing auroras, from steadily shining rings to super-fast bursts of light shooting across the pole."

The Hubble and Cassini images were focused on April and May of 2013.

Images from Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrometer (UVIS), obtained from an unusually close range of about six Saturn radii, provided a look at the changing patterns of faint emissions on scales of a few hundred miles (kilometers) and tied the changes in the auroras to the fluctuating wind of charged particles blowing off the Sun and flowing past Saturn.

"This is our best look yet at the rapidly changing patterns of auroral emission," said Wayne Pryor, a Cassini co-investigator at Central Arizona College in Coolidge, Ariz.

"Some bright spots come and go from image to image. Other bright features persist and rotate around the pole, but at a rate slower than Saturn's rotation."

Aikaterini Radioti 

The UVIS images, which are also being analyzed by team associate Aikaterini Radioti at the University of Liege, Belgium, also suggest that one way the bright auroral storms may be produced is by the formation of new connections between magnetic field lines.

That process causes storms in the magnetic bubble around Earth.

The movie also shows one persistent bright patch of the aurora rotating in lockstep with the orbital position of Saturn's moon Mimas.

While previous UVIS images had shown an intermittent auroral bright spot magnetically linked to the moon Enceladus, the new movie suggests another Saturn moon can influence the light show as well.

The new data also give scientists clues to a long-standing mystery about the atmospheres of giant outer planets.

More Information: NASA Cassini Saturn Aurora Campaign

Do Auroras Exist Outside our Solar System?

University of Leicester planetary scientists have found new evidence suggesting auroras -- similar to Earth's Aurora Borealis -- occur on bodies outside our solar system. 

Auroras occur on several planets within our solar system, and the brightest -- on Jupiter -- are 100 times brighter than those on Earth. 

However, no auroras have yet been observed beyond Neptune.

A new study led by University of Leicester lecturer Dr. Jonathan Nichols has shown that processes strikingly similar to those which power Jupiter's auroras could be responsible for radio emissions detected from a number of objects outside our solar system.

In addition, the radio emissions are powerful enough to be detectable across interstellar distances -- meaning that auroras could provide an effective way of observing new objects outside our solar system.

Auroras occur when charged particles in an object's magnetosphere collide with atoms in its upper atmosphere, causing them to glow.

However, before hitting the atmosphere, these particles also emit radio waves into space.

The study, "Origin of Electron Cyclotron Maser Induced Radio Emissions at Ultracool Dwarfs: Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling Currents," which recently appeared in the Astrophysical Journal, shows that this phenomenon is not limited to our solar system.

It shows that the radio emissions from a number of ultracool dwarfs may be caused in a very similar, but significantly more powerful, way to Jupiter's auroras.

Dr. Nichols, a Lecturer and Research Fellow in the University of Leicester's Department of Physics and Astronomy, said: "We have recently shown that beefed-up versions of the auroral processes on Jupiter are able to account for the radio emissions observed from certain "ultracool dwarfs" -- bodies which comprise the very lowest mass stars -- and "brown dwarfs" -- 'failed stars' which lie in-between planets and stars in terms of mass.

"These results strongly suggest that auroras do occur on bodies outside our solar system, and the auroral radio emissions are powerful enough -- one hundred thousand times brighter than Jupiter's -- to be detectable across interstellar distances."

The paper, which also involved researchers at the Center for Space Physics, Boston University, USA, could have major implications for the detection of planets and objects outside our solar system which could not be discovered with other methods.

Space Weather Video of Auroras

More Aurora Images and Videos here

Space Weather is predicting Auroras

Sky watchers should be alert for auroras when the solar wind arrives on August 22-24.

NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% to 50% chance of geomagnetic activity.

Aurora alerts: text, voice

False-colour composite image of the glow of Saturn's Southern auroras

Glowing Southern Lights

This false-color composite image, constructed from data obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, shows the glow of auroras streaking out about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from the cloud tops of Saturn's south polar region. It is among the first images released from a study that identifies images showing auroral emissions out of the entire catalogue of images taken by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer. In this image constructed from data collected in the near-infrared wavelengths of light, the auroral emission is shown in green. The data represents emissions from hydrogen ions in of light between 3 and 4 microns in wavelength. In general, scientists designated blue to indicate sunlight reflected at a wavelength of 2 microns, green to indicate sunlight reflected at 3 microns and red to indicate thermal emission at 5 microns. Saturn's rings reflect sunlight at 2 microns, but not at 3 and 5 microns, so they appear deep blue. Saturn's high altitude haze reflects sunlight at both 2 and 3 microns, but not at 5 microns, and so it appears green to blue-green. The heat emission from the interior of Saturn is only seen at 5 microns wavelength in the spectrometer data, and thus appears red. The dark spots and banded features in the image are clouds and small storms that outline the deeper weather systems and circulation patterns of the planet. They are illuminated from underneath by Saturn's thermal emission, and thus appear in silhouette. The composite image was made from 65 individual observations by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on Nov. 1, 2008. The observations were each six minutes long. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/ . The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/University of Leicester