in this view from a vortex near Jupiter’s north poleNASA’s Juno mission demonstrated the afterglow of lightning.
On Earth, lightning strikes originate from water clouds and occur most often near the equatorwhile on Jupiter lightning is likely to also occur in clouds containing a solution of ammonia and water, and can be seen most frequently near the poles.
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In the coming months, Juno’s orbits will repeatedly carry it near jupiter as the spacecraft passes over the night side of the giant planet, providing even more opportunities for the instrument suite to Juno scientists catch lightning in the actreports NASA.
Juno captured this view when completed its 31st close flyby of Jupiter on December 30, 2020. In 2022, citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill processed the image from raw data from the JunoCam instrument aboard the spacecraft. At the time the raw image was taken, Juno was about 20,000 miles above the clouds of Jupiter, at a latitude of about 78 degrees as it approached the planet.