Recent images and data from a pair of robotic explorers are beginning to show how small storms well up from below Jupiter's omnipresent clouds, feeding energy into larger storms that can last hundreds of years.

Researchers say the new information from the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft is confirming emerging ideas about Jupiter's weather, and will eventually improve understanding of terrestrial storms, as well.

Image of a storm on Jupiter has been color-enhanced to highlight activity. The black-and-white inset shows areas of lightning at the same location as the storm, as viewed from the planet's dark side.

Kurth said that while researchers expected the magnetosphere to vary in size, the new evidence will improve understanding of the phenomenon. Further, the size of the magnetosphere and the density of the solar wind -- a stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun -- seem to have some effect on the brightness of aurora at the planet's poles. Like Earth, Jupiter generates aurorae -- colorful lights created when charged particles interact with the planet's magnetic field. On Jupiter, this space weather occurs on a scale that vastly dwarfs the activity around our home planet. While scientists expect that the solar wind would affect Jupiter's aurora, as it does Earth's aurora, the new data are beginning to show the extent and nature of this interaction.