Astronomy Picture of the Day 09-28-04

NASA ^ | 09-28-04 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2004 September 28

Aurora Over a Communications Tower
Credit & Copyright: Frank Andreassen (nettfoto.no)

Explanation: Higher than highest communications tower, higher than highest mountain, higher than highest airplane, lies the realm of the aurora. Auroras rarely reach below 60 kilometers, and can range up to 1000 kilometers. Aurora light results from energetic electrons and protons striking molecules in the Earth's atmosphere. Frequently, when viewed from space, a complete aurora will appear as a circle around one of the Earth's magnetic poles. Pictured above is a particularly rare purple auroral corona that occurred on August 30, high above Harstad, Norway.

[petuniasevan]

Herding Saturn's rings
CASSINI PHOTO RELEASE
Posted: September 26, 2004

Saturn's moon Prometheus is seen shepherding the inner edge of Saturn's F ring. Prometheus is 102 kilometers (63 miles) across and was captured in a close-up view by the Cassini spacecraft near the time of orbital insertion at Saturn. A number of clumps are visible here along the arcing F ring.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Download larger image version here
 

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera at a distance of 8.2 million kilometers (5.1 million miles) from Saturn through a filter sensitive to visible green light. The image scale is 49 kilometers (33 miles) per pixel. Contrast was slightly enhanced to aid visibility.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras, were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

[petuniasevan]

YES! You too can be added to the APOD PING list! Just ask!

[formercalifornian]

Beautiful! I only saw an aurora once.

[RightWhale]

The aurora is hard to photograph and do it justice. We had a display that looked like a rotating rope a few days ago. Very bright, very lively.

[mikrofon]

Great image -- auroras are just incredible sights!

That pic looks like it could have been a still from a sci-fi flick...

[Soaring Feather]

Thank You. I love to see Auroras.

[Cedar]

Thanks-- beautiful shot.

[trussell]

Missed my apod ping the last couple days. Is everything ok?

[ExpandNATO]

My first impression of this picture was that of a spaceship. That is until I read the caption.