Juno data suggests lightning on Jupiter is a hundred to a million times more powerful than lightning on Earth
The uncertainty of science: Using data from the orbiter Juno as it passed multiple times above a storm on Jupiter, scientists now believe lightning bolts on Jupiter could be a hundred to a million times more powerful than lightning bolts on Earth.
Juno made 12 passes over isolated storms during that period, and was close enough on four of them to measure microwave static from lightning. The flashes averaged three per second during these passes; on one flyover, Juno detected 206 separate pulses of microwave radiation. Of a total of 613 pulses measured, Wong calculated that the power ranged from about that of a lightning bolt on Earth to 100 or more times the power of an Earth bolt. Because he compared Earth lightning emissions at one radio wavelength to Jupiter lightning emissions at a different wavelength, there’s some uncertainty in the comparison, Wong cautioned. Based on one study of lightning radio emissions on Earth, Jupiter’s bolts could have been a million times more powerful than those on Earth.
Lots of uncertainty and assumptions in these conclusions, but they are not only not surprising, they fit earlier data collected before Juno.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The uncertainty of science: Using data from the orbiter Juno as it passed multiple times above a storm on Jupiter, scientists now believe lightning bolts on Jupiter could be a hundred to a million times more powerful than lightning bolts on Earth.
Juno made 12 passes over isolated storms during that period, and was close enough on four of them to measure microwave static from lightning. The flashes averaged three per second during these passes; on one flyover, Juno detected 206 separate pulses of microwave radiation. Of a total of 613 pulses measured, Wong calculated that the power ranged from about that of a lightning bolt on Earth to 100 or more times the power of an Earth bolt. Because he compared Earth lightning emissions at one radio wavelength to Jupiter lightning emissions at a different wavelength, there’s some uncertainty in the comparison, Wong cautioned. Based on one study of lightning radio emissions on Earth, Jupiter’s bolts could have been a million times more powerful than those on Earth.
Lots of uncertainty and assumptions in these conclusions, but they are not only not surprising, they fit earlier data collected before Juno.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I am sure of one thing. I do NOT want to land on Jupiter!
Jovian lightning should be more powerful than mere mortal lightning.
No landing on Jupiter anyway….
When younger I thought “gas giant” meant it was all sky.
There are very dense fluids there, a torn rocky core in bits?
The puffy planets are closer to what I imagined, but they are too hot.
To harness that power….all going to waste.
Gary observed: “Jovian lightning should be more powerful than mere mortal lightning.”
Well played, sir. Time to gather some laurel leaves.
Powerful electrical currents produce huge magnetic fields.
“Nowhere was Jupiter’s secular variation as large as at the planet’s Great Blue Spot, an intense patch of magnetic field near Jupiter’s equator. The combination of the Great Blue Spot, with its strong localized magnetic fields, and strong zonal winds at this latitude result in the largest secular variations in the field on the Jovian world.”
(Jupiters second South magnetic pole, the great blue spot, appears also to be Jupiters red spot? A magnetic field so strong that it induces volcanism on Io?)
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/juno/nasas-juno-finds-changes-in-jupiters-magnetic-field/
Could it be possible that the change of the west coast Powerline grid of AC to high-voltage DC current have a unrealized intended effect? A strong Polarized magnetic field affecting and attracting/repelling storms? Modifying air currents with similar charge? A way to control the weather? A real man made climate change!
This is fitting news, when we appreciate that so often in Roman mythological literature and arr, Jupiter the god is portrayed with thunderbolts in his hand. “From thee proceeds th’etherial lightning’s blaze, flashing around intolerable rays… Horrid, untamed, thou rollest thy flames along. Rapid, etherial bolt, descending fire, the earth . . . trembles.” (The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus)
Saturnian lightning (father of Jove) too.
In terms of the Great Blue Spot, since Jupiter has been likened to a failed star.
Just today at phys- I read where some radio waves can be generated well away from a stellar surface.
Forgettomori had an article on laser stars, laser planets.
Might a Robert Forward starwisp magsail utilize Jovian electricity?
I was thinking a starwisp might be at one end of a tether with the other rotating down towards Jupiter to induce a strike to sent a Starwisp shooting off?
I WANT those superbolts.
Along the same lines
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q8RzZQcOYoA
Perhaps a “blue jet” can meet rocket exhaust and ride up?