Jupiter sports new 'bruise' from impact

[n2doc]

20 July 2009 by Lisa Grossman

Something has smashed into Jupiter, leaving behind a black spot in the planet's atmosphere, scientists confirmed on Monday.

This is only the second time such an impact has been observed. The first was almost exactly 15 years ago, when more than 20 fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with the gas giant.

"This has all the hallmarks of an impact event, very similar to Shoemaker-Levy 9," said Leigh Fletcher, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. "We're all extremely excited."


Infrared observations taken at the Keck II telescope in Hawaii reveal a bright spot where the impact occurred. The spot looks black at visible wavelengths (Image: Paul Kalas/Michael Fitzgerald/Franck Marchis/UC Berkeley/SETI Institute)

more:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17491-jupiter-sports-new-bruise-from-impact.html

[BlooInBloo]

1. In related news, a strange transmission was picked up, saying "ow, stop it."

[Taverner]

2. Imagine what it would be to capture this on film up close?

[bananas]

3. And people thought "2010" was science fiction...

[supernova]

4. Backyard astronomer found it

Wouldn't you know he's a Jupiter Geek.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jul/21/jupiter-scar-comet-asteroid-crash

[emad]

5. Telegraph coverage:

Amateur Australian astronomer spots asteroid crash on Jupiter

An amateur 'backyard astronomer' peering through his telescope from his home in rural Australia has spotted a galactic event that Nasa's own star-gazers had missed.

Anthony Wesley, a computer programmer from Murrumbateman, a village north of Canberra, discovered that a comet or asteroid the size of the Earth had crashed into Jupiter, leaving a vast crater.

His timing was impeccable. Not only does it come as the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of man's first steps on the moon, but the impact would only have been visible for another few days.


The collision was confirmed by Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which uses a large infrared telescope positioned at the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii to capture an image of the crater, near the gas giant's south pole. Within hours, his images had spread across the internet on science websites and amateur astronomers around the world were raving about the discovery.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/space/5878319/Amateur-Australian-astronomer-spots-asteroid-crash-on-Jupiter.html

[IndianaGreen]

6. The problem is that no one detected the object before it hit Jupiter

Was this only one object, or a fragment of a larger one broken apart by Jupiter's gravity? If the latter, where is the other chunk? What if it had hit Earth?

Here are the pictures taken by amateur astronomer that discovered this:



http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090720-jupiter-new-impact.html