Lightning bolts with three thousand million watts of energy flashing out of turbulent water clouds 30 miles (50km) below ammonia clouds.

An electrically charged moon that acts like a cosmic-sized electrical generator as it orbits a giant planet.

It is all on Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet. New pictures from the Galileo spaceprobe in orbit around it are astounding scientists.

First there is the weather on Jupiter.

An outerspace reservoir

Like the Earth, Jupiter has cyclones and anti-cyclones but on a much larger scale. Some of the giant planet's weather systems are larger than the Earth.

On Jupiter the cyclones - regions of low pressure - are turbulent and get smeared out in an east-west direction as the planet rotates.

They are the places where energy is channelled into Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere by warm gas rising from below.

This makes them zones of intense atmospheric convection and titanic lightning strikes - bolts hundreds of miles long releasing billions of watts of power.

In contrast Jupiter's anticyclones - high pressure zones - are relatively long lived and stable. Scientists believe that they do not get their energy from hot gas rising from the atmosphere's warmer depths.

Lightening strikes

The new images of Jupiter's lightning bolts were taken on the planet's nightside. Powerful as they are they are just not detectable on the daytime side of the planet.

But there are even more dramatic electrical storms raging around the giant planet.

Passing between Jupiter's innermost moon, Io, and the giant planet itself are a trillion watts of electrical power - that is the equivalent of a million of Jupiter's lightning bolts.

It means that even when in Jupiter's shadow Io is lit up like a lightbulb. Galileo has taken the first ever picture showing gasses glowing with electrical energy when Io is in Jupiter's shadow.

The energy passing between Io and Jupiter is more than that of all the output of all the power stations ever built.