Does Jupiter have lightning?

Here's where Jupiter's mystery multiplies yet again: recent findings suggest the gas giant is home to more than one type of lightning. The lightning detected by prior spacecraft seems to originate in the water clouds deep within Jupiter's atmosphere.

Are there lightning storms on Jupiter?

Some lightning flashes have also been seen at Jupiter's poles, making it the only other planet besides Earth so far where polar lightning has been observed. As with thunderstorms on Earth, Jupiter's lightning is closely associated with its massive storms. Rohini Giles at SwRI, lead author of the new study.

How powerful is Jupiter's lightning?

For these superbolts of lightning—which are up to 1,000 times as powerful as lightning on Earth—to occur at those higher altitudes, there needs to be some way to keep water in its liquid state.

Which planet has the most lightning strikes?

The power of “Jovian lightning” is also staggering, up to hundreds of times as energetic as strikes on our planet. In a different trend than seen on Earth, most of the lightning strikes on Jupiter occurs near the poles, whereas lightning on Earth tends to be concentrated around the Equator.

Is there lightning on other planets?

Lightning is found all over the solar system. Spacecraft have detected extraterrestrial lightning strikes in the clouds of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.

NASA ScienceCasts: Lightning Across the Solar System

Is there lightning on Mars?

The simple answer to that question is that yes, there will be some “lightning” on Mars during dust storms or other events with a lot of dust flying around, but it will not be anywhere near the scale of the storms seen on Earth.

How hot is lightning on Jupiter?

At Jupiter this would place the storms around 28 to 40 miles (45 to 65 kilometers) below the visible clouds, with temperatures that hover around 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius, the temperature at which water freezes).

What planet has the worst storms?

Saturn occasionally develops massive storms that extend more than 190,000 miles (300,000 kilometers), encircling almost the entire planet, while the gas giant's north pole plays host to a weird, permanent hexagon of clouds (opens in new tab) that extends deep into the planet.

Does the moon have lightning?

The Have-Nots: Mercury, Moon, Titan, and Pluto

Any place in the solar system that does not have a convective atmosphere or similar process cannot have atmospheric lightning. That rules out Mercury, the Moon, and other airless bodies like asteroids for atmospheric or volcanic lightning.

Is there lightning on Saturn?

A NASA spacecraft orbiting Saturn has captured an amazing view of lightning in broad daylight on the ringed planet. The Cassini orbiter captured the daytime lightning on Saturn as bright blue spots inside a giant storm that raged on the planet last year.

Can lightning exist space?

Lightning has also been observed on gas giant Saturn. In 1980-81, Voyager detected radio signals called sferics, which like whistlers are signs of lightning.

Does Venus have lightning?

The lightning on Venus is unique from that found on Earth, Jupiter and Saturn in that it is the only lightning known that is not associated with water clouds. Instead, on Venus, the lightning is associated with clouds of sulfuric acid.

Does Neptune have lightning?

Neptune appears to be a good candidate for lightning and other dynamic atmospheric phenomena because of its large internal heat source. Despite the presence of radio-frequency whistlers often associated with lightning, lightning has never been optically detected on Neptune.

Does it rain diamonds on Saturn?

About 10 million tons of diamond rain down on Saturn each year. The new molecule is relatively heavy, and when attracted by the planet's gravity, begins to be drawn downwards.

What is lightning like on Jupiter?

Shallow lightning and “mushballs”

The lightning detected by prior spacecraft seems to originate in the water clouds deep within Jupiter's atmosphere. This kind of lightning seems to be generated in conditions that are somewhat similar to those on Earth, i.e. from a water cloud.

Does it rain rocks on Jupiter?

Since one side of the planet permanently faces the star, its atmosphere whips around to the dark side at speeds exceeding 3200 kilometres per hour. On the nighttime side, the silicon monoxide gas cools enough to condense into rocks that rain out of the sky.

What is space lightning called?

Early research reports for these events referred to them by a variety of names, including "upward lightning," "upward discharges," "cloud-to-stratosphere discharges," and "cloud-to-ionosphere discharges." Now they are simply referred to as sprites, a whimsical term that evokes a sense of their fleeting nature, while at ...

Are there storms on Saturn?

Saturn's so-called 30-year storms appear seasonally, like Earth's hurricanes and typhoons but on a longer timescale. Saturn is nearly 10 times farther from the sun than Earth and takes far longer to orbit the sun – about 29 Earth years.

Do other planets have storms?

Technically speaking, no planets apart from Earth are known to have hurricanes. This is partly because of the definition of a hurricane, which is not just a big storm but a type of cyclone driven by convection processes specific to warm-water oceans. But other planets do have massive storms.

Who is the scariest planet?

What planet rains diamonds?

Deep within Neptune and Uranus, it rains diamonds—or so astronomers and physicists have suspected for nearly 40 years. The outer planets of our Solar System are hard to study, however. Only a single space mission, Voyager 2, has flown by to reveal some of their secrets, so diamond rain has remained only a hypothesis.

What is the prettiest planet in the universe?

The planet Saturn is probably the best known and most beautiful planet in the Solar System. Saturn's rings are far more extensive and more easily seen than those of any other planet.

Is Jupiter the coldest planet?

However, the coldest planet is not Neptune, but Uranus – even though Uranus is a billion miles closer to the Sun than Neptune. Uranus holds the record for the coldest temperature ever measured in the Solar System: a very chilly -224℃.

How cold is Jupiter?

The temperature in the clouds of Jupiter is about minus 145 degrees Celsius (minus 234 degrees Fahrenheit).

Is there ground on Jupiter?

Because there is no solid ground, the surface of Jupiter is defined as the point where the atmospheric pressure is equal to that of Earth. At this point, the pull of gravity is almost two and a half times stronger than it is on our planet.