Jupiter’s lightning flashes deep in its water-cloud layers
Juno and earlier flybys detected radio crackles and optical flashes from lightning inside Jupiter’s atmosphere, especially where water clouds can form far below the visible ammonia deck.
Moist convection charges particles the way thunderstorms do on Earth, but on a giant scale inside hydrogen-rich air. Mapping flash rates helps probe how deep storms churn and where water concentrates.
Lightning is a stethoscope for giant weather. Jupiter’s bolts reveal that familiar storm physics still runs inside an alien, planet-sized atmosphere.
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