Image:Saturn-aurora.jpg

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[edit] Summary

Saturnian aurora whose reddish colour is characteristic of ionized hydrogen plasma. Powered by the Saturnian equivalent of filamentary Birkeland currents, streams of charged particles from the interplanetary medium interact with the planet's magnetic field and funnel down to the poles. Plasma scientists suggest that these filamentary currents are associated with double layers whose electric fields accelerate the ions.

Credit: J. Trauger (JPL), NASA. Source

[edit] Licensing

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. See Copyright.
Note: This only applies to works of the Federal Government and not to the work of any individual U.S. state, territory, commonwealth, county, municipality, or any other subdivision.

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	Date/Time	Dimensions	User	Comment
current	23:00, 5 October 2005	534×450 (32 KB)	Iantresman (Talk \| contribs)	(Saturnian aurora whose reddish colour is characteristic of ionized hydrogen plasma. Powered by the Saturnian equivalent of filamentary Birkeland currents, streams of charged particles from the interplanetary medium interact with the planet's magne)