1,2,2,3,4,5,8,9,2,2,10,2,12,- 1Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Escuela de Ingenieria de Bilbao, Física Aplicada I, Bilbao, Spain (ricardo.hueso@ehu.es)
- 2INAF-IAPS, Institute of Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome, Ita
- 3DLR, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, German
- 4CSIC-IAA Astrophysics Institute of Andalucía, Granada, Spain
- 5Reichman University, Herzliya, Israel
- 6JAXA-Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Sagamihara, Japan
- 7Hokkaido University, Hokkaido, Japan
- 8NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 690, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
- 9LIRA, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité, 5 place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon, France
- 10INAF-OAPD, Astronomical Observatory of Padova, Italy
- 11CISAS G. Colombo, Padova University, Italy
- 12School of Physical Sciences, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
- *A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract
The JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) is an ESA-led mission that will investigate Jupiter’s atmosphere and the potential habitability of the Galilean satellites in 2031-2035 (Grasset et al., 2013). One of the goals of the investigation of Jupiter’s atmosphere is to determine the spatial distribution, frequency and intensity of lightning, providing a global picture of convective phenomena in Jupiter (Fletcher et al. 2024).
JUICE is in a long cruise to Jupiter that includes three close flybys of the Earth. The first of these flybys occurred on August 20, 2024 with two more flybys planned for Sept. 2026 and January 2029. JANUS is a high-resolution camera that operates in the 340-1080 nm spectral range and will obtain the highest spatial resolution images of the mission (Palumbo et al. 2025). During the 2024 flyby, JANUS obtained a sequence of 20 nightside images over a narrow strip from Madagascar to Vietnam at a spatial resolution of 146-257 m, and from a distance of 9,807-17,476 km with typical exposure times of 25 to 36 ms. While these images did not result in detection of lightning, the images show distinct compact lights from city lights, intense and mild fires and lights from maritime traffic that demonstrate the potential for lightning investigations on Jupiter (Hueso et al., 2026).
Lightning in Jupiter is considered to be much more intense and powerful than on Earth, and has been imaged by every spacecraft that has approached the planet (e.g., Becker et al., 2020). JANUS will obtain images of Jupiter over 3.5 yrs including multiple surveys of lightning in the planet’s nightside at different spatial resolutions and with different time cadences. Jovian lightning originates at pressures higher than 3 atm and can be observed in regions where no apparent storms are visible in the upper clouds at around 500 mbar. The spatial distribution, energy released and overall lightning activity connects observations of the upper atmosphere, where clouds of ammonia ice make most of the observable clouds, with intense phenomena at the base of the weather layer at pressure levels of 4-7 bar, where water condenses and lightning most likely originates.
We show JANUS observations of Earth’s nightside and review similarities and differences between lightning on Earth and Jupiter. We summarize our planned investigation of lightning activity in Jupiter and show how these Earth observations help us determine the sensitivity of the instrument towards the characterization of lightning at Jupiter.
References
- Becker et al., Small lightning flashes from shallow clouds on Jupiter. Nature (2020).
- Fletcher et al. Jupiter Science Enabled by ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer. Space Science Reviews (2023).
- Grasset et al. JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE): An ESA mission to orbit Ganymede and to characterise the Jupiter system. Planetary and Space Science (2013).
- Hueso et al., JANUS observations of Earth in preparation for its investigation of Jupiter’s atmosphere. Annales Geophysicae, in preparation (2026).
- Palumbo et al. The JANUS (Jovis Amorum ac Natorum Undique Scrutator) VIS-NIR Multi-Band Imager for the JUICE Mission, Space Science Reviews (2025).
Ricardo Hueso, Pasquale Palumbo, Cecilia Tubiana, Ganna Portyankina, Luisa María Lara, Katrin Stephan, Angelo Zinzi, Alice Lucchetti, Livio Agostini, Luca Penasa, Alessio Aboudan, Arrate Antuñano, Athena Coustenis, Junichi Haruyama, Elke Kersten, Klaus-Dieter Matz, Manish Patel, Romolo Politi, Thomas Roatsch, Mitsuteru Sato, Amy Simon, Frank Trauthan, Takahashi Yukihiro, and Yoav Yair
How to cite: Hueso, R., Palumbo, P., Tubiana, C., Portyankina, G., Lara, L. M., Yair, Y., Haruyama, J., Sato, M., Yukihiro, T., Simon, A., Coustenis, A., Agostini, L., Luchetti, A., Penasa, L., Aboudan, A., Antuñano, A., Roatsch, T., Kersten, E., Matz, K.-D., and Patel, M. and the JANUS Earth flyby team:: Prospects for Lightning Detection on Jupiter using JANUS on the JUICE mission: Insights from JANUS Earth observations , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-12136, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-12136, 2026.
