A NASA spacecraft captured a picture of a strange flash of lightning inside a vortex on Jupiter, CNN reported.
On Monday, the network reported that a green lightning bolt was spotted in one of several vortices that gather near Jupiter’s north pole.
According to the network, scientists are still trying to understand many aspects of Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet, including its massive storms and how lightning and lightning-like phenomena occur on a planet described as a “gas giant.”
And “CNN” said that lightning originates from water clouds on Earth, and that most of these waves occur near the equator. But on Jupiter, lightning strikes originate from ammonia and water clouds, and they mostly occur near the planet’s poles.
The Juno spacecraft, which first visited Jupiter and its moons in 2016, captured the event on Dec. 30, 2020, during a close flyby of the gas giant, CBS News reported.
The mission was about 19,900 miles (32,000 kilometers) above the cloud when the picture was taken.
Using raw data from the spacecraft’s Juno Cam instrument, scientist Kevin M. Gill made the final film in 2022, the network says.
Early images of Jupiter and its moons taken by the Juno cam are being released online, the network explained.
The network says the ongoing investigation of Juno will help scientists gain a greater understanding of the largest planet in the Solar System and its unique properties.
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