Where would you go to find the largest known lightning storms? The
largest and most powerful lightning storms known are not on Earth, but
in the atmosphere of Saturn. Starting in late January, the Radio and Plasma
Wave Science Instrument on the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn began
picking up huge bursts of static, similar to what AM radios experience
on Earth during thunderstorms. These bursts were traced to a storm in
Saturn's southern hemisphere. This storm is about the size of the continental
United States. Based on the strength of the radio signals, the lightning
flashes are estimated to be 1000 times stronger than any lightning on
Earth. As of mid-February, the storm was continuing. An
audio file of the static from the storm can be found at
This week's question comes from Dr. Dave Thompson. Dr. Thompson is an astrophysicist who studies gamma rays in the Exploration of the Universe Division. He helped build, test, and analyze data from EGRET on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and he is now helping build part of the Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), scheduled for launch in 2007. His particular scientific interest is gamma-ray pulsars. | |||