Jupiter's Lightning Is More Earth-Like Than We Thought

[Judi Lynn]

Juno is providing scientists with new insights into the gas giant’s flashes of light



When the Voyager 1 swung by Jupiter in 1979, scientists got their first glimpse of lightning on the solar system’s biggest planet. The spacecraft not only snapped a photo of a lightning storm but also detected radio waves from the strikes.

But the radio signals slightly differed from what researchers have recorded on Earth, raising questions about the nature of lightning on Jupiter. Now, reports Charles Q. Choi at Space.com, the Juno spacecraft has taken its own measurements and found that lightning on Jupiter is not as strange as we once thought.

Previous recordings of Jupiter’s lightning, dubbed whistlers thanks to their characteristic whistle-like sound, all seemed to fall in the kilohertz range of the radio spectrum. But lightning on Earth booms in the mega or even gigahertz range. As Choi reports, scientists have speculated many reasons behind the difference, including variations in the atmosphere or even fundamental distinctions between how lightning forms.

“Many theories were offered up to explain it, but no one theory could ever get traction as the answer,” says Shannon Brown, Juno scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a press release.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/jupiters-lightning-more-frequent-and-more-earth-we-thought-180969280/#ZSXZQ1jAp5JJQmqh.99