STORMS on Jupiter are driven by similar processes to those on Earth. Although
Jovian lightning has been known about for years, its source was a mystery.
Tracking a storm with the Galileo spacecraft, Peter Gierasch of Cornell
University in Ithaca, New York, found lightning flashing beneath banks of clouds
50 kilometres thick (Nature, vol 403, p 628). Jupiter鈥檚 atmosphere is
warmer below the cloud tops. 鈥淭he clouds are so deep they have to be water,鈥� he
told New 杏吧原创.
He says that moist convection drives storms on Earth and Jupiter. 鈥淭he
physical processes are the same, but the scale is much larger,鈥� says Gierasch.
He says that clusters of thunderstorms may drive the circulation of the planet鈥檚
atmosphere.
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