Nasa’s Juno spacecraft, currently in orbit around Jupiter, has captured images of a vortex and eerie green lightning on the gas giant.

In this view of Jupiter’s north pole, the spaceship observed the glow from a bolt of lightning.

‘On Earth, lightning bolts originate from water clouds, and happen most frequently near the equator, while on Jupiter lightning likely also occurs in clouds containing an ammonia-water solution, and can be seen most often near the poles,’ explained Nasa in a statement.

In the coming months, Juno’s orbits will repeatedly take it close to Jupiter as the spacecraft passes over the giant planet’s night side, which will provide even more opportunities for Juno’s suite of science instruments to catch lightning in the act.

Juno captured this view as it completed its 31st close flyby of Jupiter in December 2020.

In 2022, citizen scientist Kevin M Gill processed the image from raw data from the JunoCam instrument aboard the spacecraft.

At the time the raw image was taken, Juno was about 32,000km above Jupiter’s cloud tops.

Juno has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016. The probe took five years to make the 2.8billion km journey to the solar system’s largest planet and is now gathering data on the mysterious gas giant.

The spacecraft is studying the planet’s composition, gravity, magnetic field, and the source of its raging 384mph winds.

Its investigation of Jupiter will continue through September 2025 – or until the spacecraft dies.

The probe has sent back some amazing pictures of the planet over the years of its clouds, moons and even an eclipse across it’s surface.

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