PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA10096: Polar Lightning on Jupiter
Images taken by the New Horizons Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) of Jupiter's night side showed lightning strikes. Each 'strike' is probably the cumulative brightness of multiple strikes.
 Target Name:  Jupiter
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  New Horizons 
 Spacecraft:  New Horizons
 Instrument:  LORRI 
 Product Size:  960 x 720 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Johns Hopkins University/APL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA10096.tif (692.2 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA10096.jpg (61.38 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Images taken by the New Horizons Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) of Jupiter's night side showed lightning strikes. Each "strike" is probably the cumulative brightness of multiple strikes. This is the first lightning seen at high latitudes on Jupiter; it demonstrates that convection is not confined to lower latitudes, implying an internal driving heat source. Their power is consistent with previous lightning measurements at Jupiter's lower latitudes, equivalent to extremely bright terrestrial "super bolts."

Image Credit:
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Image Addition Date:
2007-10-09