Comet Chury’s ultraviolet aurora

Gas and dust rise from Chury's surface as the comet approaches the point of its orbit closest to the Sun. ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM - On Earth, auroras, also called northern lights, have always fascinated people. An international consortium involving the University of Bern has now discovered such auroras in the ultraviolet wavelength range at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Chury for short. This phenomenon was detected thanks to the analysis of data from the European Space Agency ESA's Rosetta mission. In the aurora borealis on Earth, electrically charged particles of the solar wind move along the Earth's magnetic field. At high latitudes, these strike nitrogen and oxygen atoms and molecules in the upper Earth's atmosphere and cause them to glow. These kinds of or similar aurora phenomena have also been discovered on other planets and their moons.