COOL ASTRONOMY
Many objects in the universe are too cool and faint to be detected in visible light but can be detected in the infrared. Scientists are beginning to unlock the mysteries of cooler objects across the universe such as planets, cool stars, nebulae, and many more, by studying the infrared waves they emit.
The Cassini spacecraft captured this image of Saturn's aurora using infrared waves. The aurora is shown in blue, and the underlying clouds are shown in red. These aurorae are unique because they can cover the entire pole, whereas aurorae around Earth and Jupiter are typically confined by magnetic fields to rings surrounding the magnetic poles. The large and variable nature of these aurorae indicates that charged particles streaming in from the Sun are experiencing some type of magnetism above Saturn that was previously unexpected.