An amateur astronomer has delighted stargazers from around the world by recording lightning caused by a large electrical storm on Saturn.
Image: View of Saturn lightning (white region) taken by Cassini. Credit: NASA
Retired miner Trevor Barry, from Broken Hill in far western New South Wales, has been tracking the storm since February. His recorded data has been sent to the University of Iowa and from there, logged by NASA scientists.
Space agency NASA, who originally found the storm in November using equipment aboard its Cassini spacecraft, has used Mr Barry and three other amateur astronomers throughout the world to help them track the incredible ball of lightning caused by the storm.
"They have an instrument on the Cassini spacecraft and it picks up electrostatic discharge lightning in the atmosphere, but they couldn't image it," said Barry.
"The cameras on Cassini were only looking at this area at the end of December, so although they can hear the discharges from the lightning, they can't see it."
"It's just quite a buzz to have professionals at the pointy end of their field acknowledging us amateurs and actually using our data ... it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling," he added.
"I am imaging the lightning … from Broken Hill, 1.4 billion kilometres away," Barry said. "There must be thousands, probably hundreds of thousands [of lightning bolts] every second."
The entire storm, he added, "must be thousands of kilometres across".
The storm has been estimated by experts to be around 10,000 times more powerful than any seen on Earth.
Cassini scientist at the University of Iowa Georg Fischer told reporters the contribution of the four amateurs was invaluable in tracking the storm.
"Since Cassini's camera cannot track the storm every day, the amateur's data are invaluable," he said.
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