Paula Cleggett
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                                   
September 26, 1991
(Phone:  202/453-1549)

James H. Wilson
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone:  818/354-5011)


RELEASE:  91-156

LIGHTNING STORMS DETECTED IN VENUS ATMOSPHERE 


   Scientists who studied the planet Venus from data received 
from the interplanetary spacecraft Galileo have greatly 
increased confidence that there are lightning storms in that 
planet's atmosphere.  

   The science team used the spacecraft's plasma wave 
instrument to detect electromagnetic equivalents of 
thunderclaps most probably generated by lightning bolts deep 
in the atmosphere.  

   Galileo flew by Venus at a distance of about 10,000 miles 
in February 1990.  Pictures and other observations of the 
planet were recorded and then transmitted to Earth in November 
1990, according to plan.  Scientists have been analyzing the 
data since then. 

   Galileo's primary scientific objective is to conduct close 
and extended observations of Jupiter, its atmosphere and its 
moons, beginning in December 1995.  Launched in 1989, it was 
programmed to fly by Venus and Earth for gravity assists to 
help it reach Jupiter.  It flew by Earth in December 1990 and 
is currently in the Asteroid Belt where it will obtain a close 
look at the asteroid Gaspra this October before returning for 
a second and final Earth flyby in December 1992.

   Science magazine published this week a collection of eight 
scientific articles on Galileo's Venus observations. 

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