Thread by @BiIndia

A @NASA spacecraft circling #Jupiter has captured the planet's colorful electrical outbursts — sprites and elves — for the first time

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.@NASA's Juno spacecraft has discovered that #Jupiter's atmosphere produces lightning-like electrical outbursts called transient luminous events.

#Discovery #space

On #Earth, these colorful lights occur during thunderstorms, when lightning strikes produce red tendrils called sprites or glowing disks called elves high above the clouds.

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Scientists predicted that #Jupiter would have sprites and elves too, since it has lightning, but nobody had captured these alien flashes of light until now. They were first documented in 1989.

@NASA #Discovery #space

"In the process of putting together those images, we noticed that very occasionally we saw these surprising, short-lived, bright flashes," Rohini Giles, a researcher on the Juno team, said in a press conference on Tuesday.

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"On #Earth, sprites and elves appear reddish in color due to their interaction with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere," Giles said. "But on #Jupiter, the upper atmosphere mostly consists of hydrogen, so they would likely appear either blue or pink."

@NASA #Discovery #space

#Juno can't confirm that these events were triggered by lightning strikes, since the probe's lightning-detecting instrument is on the other side of the spacecraft from its UV imaging instrument.

@NASA #Jupiter #Discovery #space

But everything else points to these 11 outbursts being transient luminous events: They were extremely short-lived, emitted lots of hydrogen, and occured about 186 miles (300 kilometers) above #Jupiter's water clouds — too high to be lightning.

@NASA #Discovery #space

"We're continuing to look for more telltale signs of elves and sprites every time #Juno does a science pass," Giles said. "Now that we know what we are looking for, it will be easier to find them at #Jupiter and on other planets.

@NASA #Discovery #space