Polar Lightning and Decadal-Scale Cloud Variability on Jupiter

doi:10.1126/science.1147912

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Science 12 October 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5848, pp. 226 - 229
DOI: 10.1126/science.1147912

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Polar Lightning and Decadal-Scale Cloud Variability on Jupiter

Kevin H. Baines,¹ Amy A. Simon-Miller,² Glenn S. Orton,¹ Harold A. Weaver,³ Allen Lunsford,² Thomas W. Momary,¹ John Spencer,⁴ Andrew F. Cheng,³ Dennis C. Reuter,² Donald E. Jennings,² G. R. Gladstone,⁵ Jeffrey Moore,⁶ S. Alan Stern,⁷ Leslie A. Young,⁴ Henry Throop,⁴ Padma Yanamandra-Fisher,¹ Brendan M. Fisher,¹ Joseph Hora,⁸ Michael E. Ressler¹

Although lightning has been seen on other planets, includingJupiter, polar lightning has been known only on Earth. Opticalobservations from the New Horizons spacecraft have identifiedlightning at high latitudes above Jupiter up to 80°N and74°S. Lightning rates and optical powers were similar ateach pole, and the mean optical flux is comparable to that atnonpolar latitudes, which is consistent with the notion thatinternal heat is the main driver of convection. Both near-infraredand ground-based 5-micrometer thermal imagery reveal that cloudcover has thinned substantially since the 2000 Cassini flyby,particularly in the turbulent wake of the Great Red Spot andin the southern half of the equatorial region, demonstratingthat vertical dynamical processes are time-varying on seasonalscales at mid- and low latitudes on Jupiter.

¹ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena CA 91109, USA.
² NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 693, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
³ The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 1110 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723, USA.
⁴ Southwest Research Institute, 1050 Walnut Street, Suite 300, Boulder, CO 80302, USA.
⁵ Southwest Research Institute, 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78238. USA.
⁶ NASA/Ames Research Center, MS 245-3, Moffett Field, CA 94035–1000, USA.
⁷ NASA Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546, USA.
⁸ Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:

Jupiter Cloud Composition, Stratification, Convection, and Wave Motion: A View from New Horizons.: D. C. Reuter, A. A. Simon-Miller, A. Lunsford, K. H. Baines, A. F. Cheng, D. E. Jennings, C. B. Olkin, J. R. Spencer, S. A. Stern, H. A. Weaver, et al. (2007)
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