Venus: CC Lightning found!

[Jeff Miller]

Looks like Earth's planetary neighbor has something in common with us on the blue marble: Lightning!

The lightning is cloud to cloud and cannot be seen from the surface - but it's there!

Now if only there was a way to hear Venus Thunder.

Full story:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/28/tech/main3549985.shtml

 

[Stephen Levine]

Lightning on Venus

Thank you for submitting that fascinating link and story! This now makes several planets in our solar system that have lightning action: Venus, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter.
Do I remember correctly that Neptune also has lightning?

 

[Saul Trabal]

Cool!

Yeah-it's been speculated that Venus has had lightning for quite a long time. The only planet where direct photographic evidence of lightning has been taken is Jupiter. Jupiter's thunderstorms can grow to the size of Texas, or larger, and lightning is 1,000 times more powerful than Earth's. Lightning flashes have recently been detected at Jupiter's poles. They've been seen northwest of the Great Red Spot.

Saturn's lightning has been measured as being anywhere from 1,000 to 1 million times more powerful than Earth's lightning. There is a huge thunderstorm in Saturn's southern hemisphere known as the Dragon Storm, which is half the size of the earth. I suspect there are thunderclouds sprouting from a huge storm directly over Saturn's south pole, where the winds within reach 350 mph. The storm is over 5,000 miles in diameter, and convective clouds have been found to rise 45 miles above the storm. I don't think attempts have been made yet to find optical lightning flashes there. There was also a U.S.-sized storm that was putting out lightning blasts 1,000 times more powerful than Earth's. However, in all cases, Saturn's lightning has been detected via radio, using the Cassini probe. Saturn's ringshine makes it a problem to see lightning flashes, as well as haze, and the possibility that lightning is occurring much deeper than at Jupiter. Saturn's winds can go as high as 1,100 mph.

Aside from reading that Uranus and Neptune have lightning, I've seen little else. But I have seen that Uranus's globe isn't as featureless as believed by some. There have been explosions of white cloud detected by telescopes. Neptune has the most ferocious winds of any planet-its winds reach 1,250 mph. There was a storm called the Great Dark Spot that lasted a short time in Neptune's northern hemisphere, and winds within that storm were clocked at 1,500 mph-the highest winds ever recorded on any planet.

I did read that, according to the Voyager probes, Neptune's lightning was about as powerful as Earth's lightning.