Small, frequent lightning storms zip across Jupiter's cloud tops, NASA's Juno spacecraft has revealed. The flashes are about 15 times as frequent as high-energy "superbolts" previously spotted on the planet, scientists report in the Aug. 6 Nature. Superbolts originate 50 to 65 kilometers below Jupiter's cloud tops, where liquid water droplets form. Scientists think superbolts form like lightning on Earth does: Colliding ice crystals and water droplets charge each other up, then stretch the charge between them when they separate.
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