Jupiter's storms aren't just big, they're packing electrical punches that put Earth's to shame. A new analysis of data from NASA's Juno spacecraft finds lightning on the gas giant can routinely deliver about 100 times the energy of a typical strike on Earth—and may, in some cases, reach levels up to 10,000 times higher, per Smithsonian. The study, published in AGU Advances, became possible after storm activity briefly eased in one region of Jupiter in 2021-22, letting researchers match Juno's radio detections with specific storms imaged by Juno's camera, the Hubble Space Telescope, and even amateur astronomers. Examining four storms, scientists logged 613 lightning pulses, averaging roughly three strikes per second.
On Earth, a single bolt carries around a billion joules of energy, enough to power about 200 homes for an hour. The research team detected flashes up to 100 times that energy, but believe they could be missing other types of energy that might result in flashes between 500 and 10,000 times the power of Earth's strikes, per a release. A previous study even suggests possible strikes up to a million times more powerful. Researchers hope further study clarifies how lightening is generated in Jupiter's atmosphere. It could also inform the search for life elsewhere, since highly energetic lightning is thought to help drive complex chemistry that could result in organisms. (Jupiter's auroras are also more energetic than Earth's.)
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