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Message Subject What's really going on?
Poster Handle Icey
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Rosetta data reveal an invisible ultraviolet aurora around comet 67P

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Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has its own version of the northern lights.

Observations taken by the Rosetta spacecraft reveal the comet’s aurora, which — unlike Earth’s eye-catching light shows — shimmers in invisible ultraviolet light, researchers report online September 21 in Nature Astronomy. Comet 67P joins comet C/Hyakutake 1996 B2, Mars (SN: 3/19/15), Saturn (SN: 4/6/20) and moons of Jupiter as known hosts of extraterrestrial auroras.

A stream of charged particles continually flowing from the sun — interact with the gas surrounding 67P to create the auroral glow, planetary scientist Marina Galand of Imperial College London and colleagues report. Solar wind electrons are drawn toward the comet by an electric field surrounding 67P, similar to the way electrons cascade into Earth’s atmosphere to produce the northern and southern lights (SN: 7/25/14).

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