PIA10096: Polar Lightning on Jupiter
 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