APOD 1.5

The picture for 09/27/10 shows Saturn in false-color with 3 hues of infrared light. This picture was synthesized from images taken by the Cassini space probe, which is currently on Titan. I find it astonishing that the aurora on Saturn's north pole takes the form of a hexagon, because it seems like most astronomical phenomena favor the curvaceous, highly symmetrical circles and ellipses. An aurora is an emission caused when solar particles follow a planet's magnetic field lines and bombard the atmosphere. Having just discussed wavelengths of light in class, it's fascinating how they "converted" an infrared image to one that we mere humans can process as different colors of visible light.