LIGHTNING strikes on other planets could help reveal the early state of the solar system.
On Earth, lightning sets the atmosphere ringing like a struck organ pipe with low-frequency electromagnetic waves.
In 2011, a space weather satellite picked up this radiation, showing that the lightning 鈥済ong鈥� could be detected from orbit. Now Fernando Simoes of NASA鈥檚 Goddard Spaceflight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, and colleagues suggest orbiting craft look for similar resonances on the solar system鈥檚 outer planets, such as Neptune and Saturn ().
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The waves鈥� frequency depends on the water content of a planet鈥檚 atmosphere. That could be used to help deduce when and where these planets, which were born closer to the sun, formed and how they got to their current homes.