Aurora Existence Visible Clearly on Uranus

As much as the universe is a puzzle for us to solve our own solar system holds a thousand mysteries and slowly reveals itself at times. Earth which is the only planet with a living existence is always curious about its neighbors around it and any activity in the other planet is a marvel for us to see.  Uranus is one such planet which lies in our solar system and like all the other planets we are curious to know what keeps happening on it. A recent set of snapshots taken by a telescope we sent to outer place named the Hubble space telescope shows the formation of an aurora on the surface of the planet Uranus and the snap is very clear with the bright spot. The snaps taken between 16 November 2011 and on 29 November 2011 clearly sites the diamond like spot which was confirmed by space scientist as the aurora.

Aurora is the display of flares of light in high regions of latitude which take place when highly charged energy particles collide with atoms in the outer hemisphere. They look like streaks of light flooded across the skies in various colors. It is actually a very beautiful site to be seen. In case of the Uranus they appeared like glowworms and were faint and twinkling unlike what we would see in our skies above the north and south poles. This is the first time that any telescope sent from the earth has snapped the photographs of the aurora on Uranus. The existence of auroras was known as there have been incidences where a passing spacecraft might have seen the lights. Also the lights did not last for long like they do on earth. They were visible only for a short period of time whereas on earth they can be seen for hours together.

Auroras are part of the magnetosphere which is a layer enveloping the planet which has been restricted by its magnetic field and helped by the solar wind dissipate charged particles from the sun. But in case of Uranus the magnetic field it harbors is very weak and therefore the feeble spots instead of bright continuous patches of light were seen. Apart from earth the other planets which have a strong magnetic field are Saturn and Jupiter. Another reason for the faintness of the aurora could be because of the distance between Earth and Uranus. Uranus is precisely four billion kilometers away from earth and from this distance it is not possible to view a clearer view.

The last time Uranus aurora was seen very clearly was from spacecraft Voyager 2 where astronomers had recorded the aurora as their aircraft sped by the planet. This was in 1986 and that was the only time that this planet had been seen from such a short distance and the activities whatever could be recorded in the short span of time were recorded. The scientist are assuming that the aurora is maybe due to the funny tilt of Uranus’s magnetic axis which is at an angle of 60 degrees from its rotational axis.