Saturnian Lightning

These false-color mosaics from NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured a Lightning striking within the huge storm that encircled Saturn's Northern Hemisphere for much of the AD 2011. The larger mosaic on the left of the panel shows the Lightning Flash, which appears as a blueish dot. The smaller mosaic on the right is composed of images taken 30 minutes later, and the Lightning is (let's say OBVIOUSLY...) not flashing at that time.
The white arrow points to the location where the Lightning occurred in the Clouds. The Optical Energy of this and other Flashes on Saturn is comparable to the strongest of the flashes on Earth. The flash is approx. 120 miles (about 200 Km) long when it exits the Clouds Tops. From this, scientists deduced that the Lightning Bolts originated in the Clouds deeper down in Saturn's Atmosphere where Water Droplets freeze. This is the analogous Region of the Atmosphere where Lightnings are created on Earth.
This Lightning Flash appeared only in the filter sensitive to Blue Visible Light, and the images were enhanced to increase the visibility of the Lightning. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters are usually combined to create a Natural Color View. Since Visible Red-Light images were not available, images taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of Near-InfraRed Light centered at 752 nanometers were used in place of red. Also, the blue filter image was enhanced to increase the visibility of the lightning. The result is a type (as a matter of fact, just one of the VERY many...) of False Color Image.

The images were obtained with the Cassini Spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 6, 2011, at a distance of approximately 2 MMs (such as about 3,3 MKM) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-Spacecraft, or Phase, Angle of 83°. These mosaics are simple Cylindrical Map Projections, defined such that a square pixel subtends equal intervals of Latitude and Longitude. At higher Latitudes, the pixel size in the North-South direction remains the same, but the pixel size (in terms of physical extent on the Planet) in the East-West direction becomes smaller. The pixel size is set at the Equator, where the distances along the sides are equal. This map has a pixel size of approx. 12 miles (such as about 20 Km) at the Equator.