Exploring Auroras Across the Planets

If you’ve ever had the chance to view an aurora, you know it can be an amazing display of an event that you can’t explain. Did you know that other planets also experience these events? Planets and even moons have their own unique auroras driven by solar winds and shaped by planetary magnetospheres.

Read on to see how a handful of planets and moons experience their own auroras and how they may form or be viewed. We may have already seen our first glimpses on other planets. 

Auroras Beyond Earth: A Universal Light Show

Auroras form when charged particles, mainly electrons, from the solar wind collide with atoms in a planet’s atmosphere. As long as you have the components for an aurora to happen, it will occur. These elements are solar wind, atmosphere, and a magnetic field. 

Martian Auroras