By Tim Binnall
While passing over Jupiter's North Pole, NASA's Juno probe snapped a photo of a green lightning bolt erupting within a vortex in the planet's atmosphere. The remarkable image was actually captured by the spacecraft in December of 2020, though only came to light last week when the space agency showcased it on their website. According to NASA, Juno was "about 19,900 miles above Jupiter’s cloud tops" when the rather fortuitous shot was taken.
The raw image was subsequently entered into a database of Juno photos which are available online for citizen scientists to study. In this particular instance, Kevin M. Gill is credited with having stumbled upon and processing the picture which has wowed space aficionados. In highlighting the photo, NASA explained that unlike Earth, where lightning bolts most frequently originate from water clouds around the equator, such events can be created by an ammonia-water solution in the atmosphere and "can be seen most often near the poles." One can't help but appreciate the space agency offering an explanation for the glowing green dot before it wound up being confused for something alien in nature.