NASA released an image showing lightning...on Jupiter! This image was actually captured at the end of 2020 when the Juno spacecraft completed a close flyby of the gas giant. Then in 2022 Kevin Gill, a "citizen scientist," did some additional processing on the image to show what you see below. The raw images he was working with are publicly available on the MissionJuno website.
Image credit:
Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
Image processing by Kevin M. Gill © CC BY
You're looking at a vortex, or storm system, near Jupiter's north pole. On Earth lightning is rarest at the poles and most common around the equator, but that's not the case on Jupiter. The lightning is the green dot seen in the image!
The Juno spacecraft is still passing around the gas giant and could have an opportunity to capture more images of lightning. According, to NASA it was roughly 19,900 miles above the tops of these clouds when it took this image.
