SIMULTANEOUS OBSERVATIONS OF THE SATURNIAN AURORA AND POLAR HAZE WITH THE HST/FOC

Near simultaneous observations of the Saturnian H-2 north ultraviolet aurora and the polar haze were made at 153 nm and 210 nm respectively with the Faint Object Camera on board the post-COSTAR Hubble Space Telescope. The auroral observations cover a complete rotation of the planet and, when co-added, they reveal the presence of an auroral emission near 80 degrees N with a brightness of about 150 kR of total H-2 emission. The maximum vertical optical depth at 210 nm is found to be located similar to 5 degrees equatorward of the auroral emission zone. The haze particles are presumably formed by hydrocarbon aerosols initiated by H2+ auroral production. In this case, the 3 x 10(^10) W of H2 emission observed with the FOG, combined with the deduced haze optical depth requires an efficiency of aerosol formation of about 7%. This result indicates that auroral production of hydrocarbon aerosols is a viable source of high-latitude haze.