Hubble Space Telescope Captures Rare Jupiter Collision

[FourScore]

This Hubble picture, taken on July 23, by the new Wide Field Camera 3, is the sharpest visible-light picture taken of the atmospheric debris from a comet or asteroid that collided with Jupiter on July 19. This is Hubble's first science observation following its repair and upgrade in May. The size of the impactor is estimated to be as large as several football fields. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and H. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), and the Jupiter Impact Team


NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the sharpest visible-light picture yet of atmospheric debris from an object that collided with Jupiter on July 19. NASA scientists decided to interrupt the recently refurbished observatory's checkout and calibration to take the image of a new, expanding spot on the giant planet on July 23.

Discovered by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley, the spot was created when a small comet or asteroid plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere and disintegrated. The only other time such a feature has been seen on Jupiter was 15 years ago after the collision of fragments from comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

"Because we believe this magnitude of impact is rare, we are very fortunate to see it with Hubble," said Amy Simon-Miller of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Details seen in the Hubble view shows a lumpiness to the debris plume caused by turbulence in Jupiter's atmosphere."

The new Hubble images also confirm that a May servicing visit by space shuttle astronauts was a big success.

"This image of the impact on Jupiter is fantastic," said U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., chairwoman of the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee. "It tells us that our astronauts and the ground crew at the Goddard Space Flight Center successfully repaired the Hubble telescope. I'm so proud of them and I can't wait to see what's next from Hubble."

For the past several days, Earth-based telescopes have been trained on Jupiter. To capture the unfolding drama 360 million miles away, Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, gave observation time to a team of astronomers led by Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

"Hubble's truly exquisite imaging capability has revealed an astonishing wealth of detail in the impact site," Hammel said. "By combining these images with our ground-based data at other wavelengths, our Hubble data will allow a comprehensive understanding of exactly what is happening to the impact debris."

Simon-Miller estimated the diameter of the impacting object was the size of several football fields. The force of the explosion on Jupiter was thousands of times more powerful than the suspected comet or asteroid that exploded over the Siberian Tunguska River Valley in June 1908.

The image was taken with the Wide Field Camera 3. The new camera, installed by the astronauts aboard space shuttle Atlantis in May, is not yet fully calibrated. While it is possible to obtain celestial images, the camera's full power has yet to be seen.

"This is just one example of what Hubble's new, state-of-the-art camera can do, thanks to the STS-125 astronauts and the entire Hubble team," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "However, the best is yet to come."

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/jupiter-hubble.html

[kevinbgoode]

1. So...so...if Jupiter is nothing but a big ball of gaseous contaminants

what happened to the comet/asteroid when it impacted? I mean, did it just sail through the whole ball of confusion and come out the other side, or is there a surface somewhere underneath that big chemical soup?

[qazplm]

2. there is a solid core of sorts

but well before it got there, it would be exposed to vast atmospheric pressure which would no doubt destroy it before it got to the core.

[Maru Kitteh]

3. All those chemicals gave it cancer.

Then it's insurance company refused to pay for "experimental" treatments. It was tragic.

[Canuckistanian]

4. Jupiter has a much heavier atmosphere than we do

That asteroid would have mostly burned up before being stopped dead by the super-dense cold surface (probably frozen methane/ammonia).

[LunaSea]

14. Artist impression of comet impact in Jupiters atmosphere

A small comet plunges into Jupiter's atmosphere in this painting commisioned for Carl Sagan's book "Comet". acrylic on illustration board, 1987. copyright 2008 Don Dixon / cosmographica.com



Jupiter, rock core, metalic hydrogen, liquid hydrogen and atmosphere of hydrogen and helium

[Delphinus]

15. I'm certainly enjoying

cosmographica.com!

[Archae]

5. I've read about the theoretical stuff in Jupiter.

A layer of hydrogen that has been stripped of their electrons by heat and pressure so it's metallic, and the theory that the core is an Earth-sized ball of crystalized carbon.
Yup, a diamond the size of the Earth.

[FourScore]

7. Really?

[Archae]

9. Just theoretical, for now.

[saltpoint]

6. Thank you for posting this.

Terrific stuff.

[Zomby Woof]

8. That's all well and good

But how does this have anything to do with Gates/Crowley/Obama? :shrug:

[dysfunctional press]

10. so- that's two pretty decent comet/stroid hits in 15 years for jupiter...

when does our number come up?

[ControlledDemolition]

11. How big would the impacting object have to have been? n/t

[FourScore]

12. "...estimated the diameter of the impacting object was the size of several football fields.

The force of the explosion on Jupiter was thousands of times more powerful than the suspected comet or asteroid that exploded over the Siberian Tunguska River Valley in June 1908."

[ControlledDemolition]

13. Thanks FS, I came across a report from Australia saying that the size of the...

... disturbance was about that of the Earth. I thought the object might have been bigger.

[Selatius]

17. It wouldn't need to be big to wipe out a large area.

As a general rule, you take the diameter of the asteroid or comet and double it and then multiply that figure by 10 to get the size of the crater it creates when it impacts the ground.

An object 10km wide then would produce a crater that is 200km wide (10 x 2 x 10). That is roughly the size of the object that wiped out the dinosaurs. A 100m wide object (not that big) would create a crater that is a surprising 2km wide (.100 x 2 x 10).

For what it's worth, scientists believe it was a 100m wide icy object that exploded in the atmosphere above Tunguska, Russia in 1908 out there in Siberia. The explosion leveled trees for dozens of miles around. We know this because Russian expeditions to that site documented all those trees knocked over like toothpicks.

If something like that had happened during the Cold War, somebody could've easily mistaken it for a nuclear attack by an enemy and then launched nukes in retaliation.

[exboyfil]

16. A scientific theory holds that

Jupiter is a great vacuum cleaner which serves to reduce the number of hits the inner planets like us take. Given the "impact" of an impact, you could probably conclude that only intelligent life can develop on planets with similar set ups.