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Space

Huge thunderstorm on Jupiter captured in best detail ever seen

NASA's Juno spacecraft swooped in for a close look at a massive thunderstorm on Jupiter, revealing that it may have similarities to storms on Earth

By Alex Wilkins

24 February 2025

Jupiter thunderstorm

A 3400-kilometre-wide thunderstorm on Jupiter

Shawn R. Brueshaber et al. 2025

A thunderstorm that raged in Jupiter’s atmosphere for weeks was fortuitously captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, giving astronomers the most detailed look ever at a storm on the gas giant.

On 29 November 2021, Juno passed directly over a 3400-kilometre-wide thunderstorm that had been tracked by astronomers on Earth since it started nearly two weeks earlier. Juno’s close approach, about 5700 kilometres above the storm, meant that at Michigan Technological University and his colleagues could analyse data from three of Juno’s on-board instruments,…

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