Lightning strikes in a storm bigger than worlds

Bad Astronomy
By Phil Plait
Jul 19, 2012 12:18 AMNov 20, 2019 12:38 AM

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In 2010, a storm erupted in Saturn's northern hemisphere. It grew, and grew, and GREW, until it physically wrapped around the planet. At its peak it was 300,000 kilometers (180,000 miles) in length: 3/4 of the distance from the Earth to the Moon! As you might expect, a storm like that might generate lightning... and even from a distance of 3.3 million km (2 million miles), the lightning flashes were bright enough that they were visible to the Cassini spacecraft:

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