2023-05-23 15:22:30
Research Press Release
Nature Communications
May 24, 2023
Astronomy: Lightning similarities on Jupiter and Earth
It turns out that the rhythm of the lightning initiation process on Jupiter is similar to that of lightning occurring inside clouds on Earth. A paper reporting thisNature Communicationswill be published in Our findings suggest that some lightning processes may be similar between the gas giant Jupiter and the rocky planet Earth, despite their strikingly different sizes and structures.
Although lightning is known to occur on Jupiter, our knowledge of the details of the lightning process has been limited due to the limited temporal resolution of previous measurements. Comparing Jupiter’s lightning to Earth’s lightning might improve our understanding of the processes involved in lightning, but limited data have made this difficult. It is not known if the lightning initiation process on Jupiter goes through stages similar to those on Earth.
Ivana Kolmašová and colleagues analyzed about five years of high-resolution data collected by radio receivers on NASA’s Juno spacecraft in polar orbit around Jupiter. As a result, it turned out that radio pulses from Jupiter occur at intervals of about 1 millisecond. This suggests a stepwise feature in the initiation process of lightning, similar to observations of lightning on Earth. The results suggest that the lightning initiation process on Jupiter may be similar to that of lightning occurring inside clouds in Earth’s atmosphere.
doi:10.1038/s41467-023-38351-6
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