News Planetary Science

Jupiter’s lightning bolts contort the same way as Earth’s

Collisions of water and ice might build electric charge in thunderclouds on both planets

An illustration of blue-gray clouds with bright blue and orange dots of light scattered throughout the image.

Lightning cavorts through Jupiter’s thunderclouds (illustrated) at a rhythm akin to bolts in Earth’s skies.

Gerald Eichstädt, MSSS, SwRI, JPL-Caltech/NASA

By Nikk Ogasa

On Jupiter, lightning jerks and jolts a lot like it does on Earth.

Jovian lightning emits radio wave pulses that are typically separated by about one millisecond, researchers report May 23 in Nature Communications. The energetic prestissimo, the scientists say, is a sign that the gas giant’s lightning propagates in pulses, at a pace comparable to that of the bolts that cavort through our own planet’s thunderclouds.