Posted on 03/24/2021 3:08:22 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: Why does so much of Jupiter's lightning occur near its poles? Similar to Earth, Jupiter experiences both aurorae and lightning. Different from Earth, though, Jupiter's lightning usually occurs near its poles -- while much of Earth's lightning occurs near its equator. To help understand the difference, NASA's Juno spacecraft, currently orbiting Jupiter, has observed numerous aurora and lightning events. The featured image, taken by Juno's Stellar Reference Unit camera on 2018 May 24, shows Jupiter's northern auroral oval and several bright dots and streaks. An eye-catching event is shown in the right inset image -- which is a flash of Jupiter's lightning -- one of the closest images of aurora and lightning ever. On Earth (which is much nearer to the Sun than Jupiter), sunlight is bright enough to create, by itself, much stronger atmospheric heating at the equator than the poles, driving turbulence, storms, and lightning. On Jupiter, in contrast, atmospheric heating comes mostly from its interior (as a remnant from its formation), leading to the hypothesis that more intense equatorial sunlight reduces temperature differences between upper atmospheric levels, hence reducing equatorial lightning-creating storms.
(Excerpt) Read more at apod.nasa.gov ...
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The Hubble Space Telescope observed spectacular auroras at Saturn's north pole.
NASA
More of that man-made global warming.
bttt
Yeah, that darn Cassini space craft we sent there years ago was a pig on gas. Was badly in need of a tune-up. Had black smoke billowing out from the exhaust pipes. Polluted the hades out of the planet.
:)
Sorry, meant the Galileo spacecraft.
Cassini was Saturn.
Saturn’s hexagonal pole patterns are wild
Same with venus’s dual vortices
That is still the scariest movie I’ve ever seen...........................
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