In popish mythology , Jupiter was the god of lightning , as well as the sky and in question sexual face-off in non - human form . It ’s therefore extremely appropriate that the planet named after him has been break to have alot of lightningtoo .
Decades after the existence of lightning on Jupiter was unwrap by Voyager 1 , we still do n’t know a mickle about it . However , a study in Nature Communications has used the improved time resolution leave by the Juno mission to explore the processes behind Jupiter ’s electric discharges and compare them to those on Earth .
Although Jupiter ’s ambiance is mostly hydrogen and He , rather than the nitrogen , oxygen , and piss evaporation that command Earth ’s , it ’s thought clouds of water and ice still form at temperatures a little below freezing . Convective motion motor by heat energy from deep inside Jupiter causes care separation within the swarm , creating sinewy galvanizing fields . Just as on Earth , lightning can stand out between these as the landing field break down , although on Jupiter this mostly happens near the celestial pole , rather thanin the topicsas we are used to .
As the Galileo mission made itsfinal diveinto Jupiter , it detected radio frequency signals , but subsequent psychoanalysis showed these were follow from a recollective way forth . Galileo had insert a ironical and stable part of Jupiter ’s standard pressure , with no thunderstorms nearby . This location may have allowed Galileo to keep sending signal from recondite in Jupiter ’s atmosphere than if it had been struck by a lightning bolt , but it also hinder how much we could acquire about these events .
By swooping to only a few thousand km above Jupiter ’s swarm top , Juno can detect wireless signals from the planet ’s lightning , and do so again and again , rather than trust on hitting the right spot in a final blaze of aura .
Juno can value the radio pulses develop by electricity in Jupiter ’s atm with a resolution of an eighth of a millisecond . The paper reports such pulses are typically a msec apart . The observation , the authors conclude , “ paint a picture step - like extensions of lightning channels and signal that Jovian lightning initiation processes are alike to the initiation of intracloud lightning at Earth . ”
The timescales of Jovinian lightning , and the gaps between , are also similar to those in Earth ’s atmosphere , with radio signals about a millisecond asunder from stepping processes whereleadersjerkily skip over across the sky .
Some apparent similarity are illusive , the authors indicate . On Earth , there are usually three to six cerebrovascular accident in tightlipped - to - ground flare of lightning , while Jupiter ’s radio pulses mainly came in slew of five , but that does not think the process is the same . “ The Jovian pulse group were very unconvincing generated by multi - stroke lightning flashes . In such case , the Jovian strokes would come along in about 30 multiplication fast chronological sequence than on the Earth , ” the authors drop a line . They consider this “ improbable ” .
We might expect everything on Jupiter to operate at a different scale , including tremendous bolts suitable of a god . On the one hand , the authors conclude that lightning travels at exchangeable speed within Jupiter ’s and Earth ’s clouds . On the other , they propose the lightning channels are a few hundred to a few thousand meters long . Although , lightning megaflasheshundreds of kilometerslong have been recorded on Earth , most are somewhat smaller than those on the sky god ’s planet .
The study is published inNature Communications .
