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January 27, 2009

Milky Way Over Mauna Kea

From Astronomy Picture of the Day

 1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
       the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

 2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
       night after night they display knowledge.

 3 There is no speech or language
       where their voice is not heard.

 4 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
       their words to the ends of the world.
       In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,

 5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,
       like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

 6 It rises at one end of the heavens
       and makes its circuit to the other;
       nothing is hidden from its heat.

                                Psalm 19:1-6

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November 18, 2008

It's a bird, it's a plane…it's an aurora over Saturn's north pole!

Unusual Auroras Over Saturn's North Pole
Credit: Cassini VIMS Team, JPL, ESA, NASA

Explanation: What's causing this unusual aurora over Saturn? No one is sure. Infrared images by the robotic Cassini spacecraft of the north pole of Saturn have uncovered aurora unlike any other seen previously in our Solar System. The strange aurora are shown in blue in the above image, while the underlying clouds are shown in red. The previously recorded, also-strange hexagon cloud patterns are visible in red below the aurora. These Saturnian aurora can cover the entire pole, while auroras around Earth and Jupiter are typically confined by magnetic fields to rings surrounding the magnetic poles. More normal auroral rings had been previously imaged around Saturn. The recently imaged strange auroras above Saturn's north pole can change their global patterns significantly in only a few minutes. The large and variable nature of these auroras indicate that charged particles streaming in from the Sun are experiencing some type of magnetism above Saturn that was previously unexpected.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

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