1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA
2. Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
3. Space Research Department, Observatoire de Paris, 92195 Meudon, France
4. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA
5. CETP/UVSQ, 78140 Velizy, France
6. LPAP, Université de Liège, allée du 6 aout, 17, B-4000 - Liège, Belgium
7. Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London SW7 2BZ, UK
8. Southwest Research Institute, Culebra Road, San Antonio, Texas 78288, USA

Correspondence to: W. S. Kurth¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to W.S.K. (Email: william-kurth@uiowa.edu).

Abstract

Saturn is a source of intense kilometre-wavelength radio emissions that are believed to be associated with its polar aurorae^{1, 2}, and which provide an important remote diagnostic of its magnetospheric activity. Previous observations implied that the radio emission originated in the polar regions, and indicated a strong correlation with solar wind dynamic pressure^{1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}. The radio source also appeared to be fixed near local noon and at the latitude of the ultraviolet aurora^{1, 2}. There have, however, been no observations relating the radio emissions to detailed auroral structures. Here we report measurements of the radio emissions, which, along with high-resolution images of Saturn's ultraviolet auroral emissions⁸, suggest that although there are differences in the global morphology of the aurorae, Saturn's radio emissions exhibit an Earth-like correspondence between bright auroral features and the radio emissions. This demonstrates the universality of the mechanism that results in emissions near the electron cyclotron frequency narrowly beamed at large angles to the magnetic field^{9, 10}.

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