Original link from NASA

In this view of a vortex near Jupiter’s north pole, NASA’s Juno mission observed the glow from a bolt of lightning. On Earth, lightning bolts originate from water clouds, and happen most frequently near the equator, while on Jupiter lightning likely also occurs in clouds containing an ammonia-water solution, and can be seen most often near the poles.

In the coming months, Juno’s orbits will repeatedly take it close to Jupiter as the spacecraft passes over the giant planet’s night side, which will provide even more opportunities for Juno’s suite of science instruments to catch lightning in the act.

Juno captured this view as Juno completed its 31st close flyby of Jupiter on Dec. 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 19,900 miles (32,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops, at a latitude of about 78 degrees as it approached the planet.

JunoCam’s raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing. More information about NASA citizen science can be found at https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience and https://www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience.

  • Freeman@lemmy.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 years ago

    Yep. I think the math says the min for failed star/brown dwarf Is like 13Mj.

    Have we ever observed a brown dwarf? I think they are too dim. But maybe indirectly if it was part of a binary system?

    • GrandmasterFrank
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 years ago

      Well there is at least Gliese 229B which was observed because it was in a solar system, but idk if that counts as a binary system technically

      • Freeman@lemmy.pub
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 years ago

        Ooo. Thanks for that link. That’s crazy they were able to image a binary at 29 AU

        • GrandmasterFrank
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 years ago

          Yeah it’s crazy the shit we can infer just from light, just from right here on Earth (or from orbit, but y’know, basically the same distance). Doppler shifting, red/blue shifts, astro spectroscopy, etc, it’s incredible.