Lightning on Jupiter
Does lightning occur only on Earth? No. Spacecraft in our Solar System have detected lightning on other planets, including Mars , Jupiter and Saturn , and lightning is likely on Venus , Uranus, and Neptune . Lightning is a sudden rush of electrically charged particles from one location to another. On Earth , drafts of colliding ice and water droplets usually create lightning-generating charge separation, but what happens on Jupiter ? Images and data from NASA's Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft bolster previous speculation that Jovian lightning is also created in clouds containing water and ice. In the featured Juno photograph , an optical flash was captured in a large cloud vortex near Jupiter's north pole . During the next few months, Juno will perform several close sweeps over Jupiter's night side, likely allowing the robotic probe to capture more data and images of Jovian lightning .