Jan 5, 2021
Does lightning strike on Venus? Mysterious flash may help solve puzzle.
National Geographic Earth’s clouds separate electrically charged water droplets and ice crystals through convection—when warmer clouds move up and cooler clouds sink down—leading to lightning. But it’s not clear how much vertical mixing happens in Venus’ clouds, says Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at North Carolina State University. And Akatsuki can’t place the altitude of the flash, so if it was lightning, it could have struck from anywhere between the upper atmosphere and the main cloud deck tens of miles deeper.
