NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs Jupiter aurora

The image at top right shows Jovian aurora observed on February 8, 1992, by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera(FOC) aboard NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This is the first direct image of the aurora taken in ultraviolet light (1600Angstroms) and the best auroral images ever. An earlier image of Jupiter's full disk (lower left), obtained by HST's WideField/Planetary Camera, shows the location of the northern aurora (box) with respect to the rest of the planet.

The FOC image shows the aurora is not uniformly bright, but rather there is a region of significantly increased brightness toward the west (right) side. This effect has not yet been explained fully.