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Science Quickly

Jupiter Crackles with Polar Lightning

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2018

⏱️ 2 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Juno spacecraft data suggest lightning on Jupiter is much more common than we thought—but it congregates near the poles, not the equator as on Earth. Christopher Intagliata reports.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.

0:22.7

.jp. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacult.

0:33.6

This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Christopher in Taliatta.

0:39.0

39 years ago, Voyager 1 swung by Jupiter on its journey to interstellar space.

0:44.5

And as it did, it picked up spooky low-frequency radio signals like this.

0:53.9

The whistlers, as they're known, were radio broadcasts from unusual natural antennas,

0:59.9

lightning bolts, which act like radio transmitters with current moving through a channel.

1:04.6

Along with photos of the dark side of the planet, the whistlers confirmed the existence

1:08.4

of lightning on Jupiter, but the limited observations made

1:11.4

it hard to pin down where electrical storms gathered, and the bolts were thought to be rare,

1:15.8

compared to Earth. Now the Juno spacecraft has detected the first high-frequency radio signals

1:21.3

and 1600 new whistlers, which together suggests lightning on Jupiter is much more common than scientists thought, and a lot more similar to Earth lightning too.

1:33.2

The discharges also appear to be between clouds containing liquid water and others containing water ice,

1:39.1

the same kind of conditions for cloud-to-cloud lightning here on Earth.

1:42.8

The findings appear in the journal's

1:44.5

nature and nature astronomy. There is one twist to this Jovian weather story, though. Jupiter's

1:50.8

lightning storms congregate near the planet's poles, not its equator. That's the opposite

1:55.4

of Earth, and a detail that makes this familiar phenomenon still seem a bit otherworldly.

2:02.6

Thanks for listening. For Scientific American 60 Second Science, I'm Christopher in Dalyato.

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