Reports: Astronomers capture impact on Jupiter's surface
A fireball thought to be an asteroid or comet hitting the surface of Jupiter was captured by two amateur astronomers early Monday, spaceweather.com reports.
One of the astronomers, identified as George Hall from Dallas, posted a screen shot in multiple reports and wrote about the discovery on his blog, George’s Astrophotography.
“The impact was observed by Dan Peterson visually this morning,” Hall wrote, crediting another space enthusiast with making the initial observation and posting what he saw online.
“When I saw the post, I went back and examined the videos that I had collected this morning …” he wrote in a post describing how he captured a video of the impact. “The video was captured with a 12" LX200GPS, 3x Televue Barlow, and Point Grey Flea 3 camera. The capture software was Astro IIDC.”
Hall posted a four-second video of the impact. He wrote that it was taken at about 6:35 a.m. Monday on his Flickr page.
Spaceweather.com compares Hall’s images with other impacts to Jupiter’s surface reported by NASA in 2009 and 2010.
A NASA Science News post from September 2010 stated: “Jupiter is getting hit surprisingly often by small asteroids, lighting up the giant planet's atmosphere with frequent fireballs.”
The post went on to say that Jupiter is frequently hit by small objects, causing impacts “bright enough to see through backyard telescopes on Earth.”
SpaceWeather.com wrote: “Astronomers around the world will now begin monitoring the impact site for signs of debris - either the cindery remains of the impactor or material dredged up from beneath Jupiter's cloud tops.”
Are you an amateur astronomer with images of the Jupiter impact? Share your videos with us or write about your observations in the comments below.
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This is so interesting. Once a month or so the local astronomers get together with the public and look into the heavens. Im older but starting to get the bug!
Asteroid impacts on Jupiter are cool but what I want to know is how come Jupiter got nearly all the angular momentum of the Solar System and the Sun didn't get squat. That heavy gas ball rotates every 10 hours or so. Could Jupiter really be a failed star? Why can't you astronomers figure that out? Inquiring minds want to know.
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast221/lectures/lec17.html
Try this link. It's pretty interesting.
As soon as we heard the news, we pointed the telescopes at Jupiter for the following 48hrs. I've just finished a Jupiter time-lapse from last night (http://goo.gl/CNoiv) – absolutely no sign of any impact soot from Monday's comet or asteroid hit.
One of those babies impact earth and it's Goodnight Irene. One million years of human existence on planet earth – gone for good in a few minutes, without so much as a trace. We are puny, and hanging on by a thread.
Actually, humans, as they are known today, have only been around for about 200,000 years.
how do you know that?, were you told by someone or did you read it, or better still were you there?I dont think so, maybe you should keep an open mind like me.
2deep5me
Billions of dollars of equipment and the best footage look like a security video from Seven Eleven.
The equipment used for this was amateur astronomy stuff that cost a few thousand. I take it you don't read closely.
Never talk again.
Jupiter is the best body guard Earth could ever ask for.
<3 Jupiter, bros for life
Werd
NOT weird. Jupiter's huge gravitational pull sweeps up space debris, that otherwise might hit Earth.
Naw bro.. the moon is way better bud. He always got our back.
Maybe I should have taken that left toin at Albuquerque.
If Jupiter keeps adding mass like this in another billion years it could move up to being a Brown Dwarf Star. Whoopee.
Jupiterian flatulence.
What does your wife have to do with this?
Nah. Just because Bush sat there reading "My Pet Goat" while we were under an attack that could have been prevented had he and his big Dick not ignored the warnings of the intelligence community doesn't mean Dim Son is responsible for events on Jupiter. Though I'm sure Bush has a great influence on Uranus, eh Sarge?
So Patrick... how do you know about Bush's big dick?
If you play the video very slowly you can see "them" as they ride the light through the atmosphere on their way to their machine deep inside.
There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the Universe. With tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis.
Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man, who even now fight to survive–somewhere beyond the heavens
Excellent. The Cylons are near!
Quoting the intro to "Battlestar Galactica" isn't going to give you the proof you're looking for...
See? This is what happens, when aliens from another system try to take short cuts through our solar system!
Now that's funny.
At the end of the video, you can see a blast ring surrounding it. Amazing.
Nice to have a big brother planet Jupiter to shield us from all this intergallactic debris.
Great comment P! And quitte accurate from what I've read!
Sorry for the typo Piranha ... should have typed "quite". I guess a solar flare got in my eye. heh heh heh
When are we going to see a picture of Uranus?
The unique attribute about Uranus is that it not only receives projectiles, but it also emits them as well.
LMAO
Picture captured using iphone 5
I don't believe this was an impact ... remember shoemaker-Levy 9? It left black clouds on the planet after impact ... this left no remnants as someone else suggested earlier. We should have seen something just after if it was an impact. I hope the video keeps rolling as I suspect we will see more soon.
If not an impact then perhaps it was a launch. No geo activity on Jupiter.
Ya'all play the lotto ? You'll like 1 in 125,000 as your odds of Apophis paying us a visit on 04 13 2029
We hand Nasa BILLIONS of OUR tax dollars and some yokle in his backyard witnesses this collision on a distant planet? PULL NASA'S FUNDING. ENOUGH ALREADY.
Wow you really are clueless. We don't give NASA funding to sit and stare at Jupiter every night NASA is charged with other pressing missions of far greater importance and besides the universe is a pretty big place no one can watch everywhere all the time.
NASA is the only thing doing something good and very important in the US.
@huh? so you want NASA funding pull out? hmm hmm,, perhaps, if in alternative timeline, we pulled out funds for NASA and in the near future, we realized our Earth is facing doom and we couldn't escape our Earth to survive out there in space.. .. its your decision to make which we need to support fund or not..
Oh yeah! Like you are going to get a ticket on that escape shuttle. Only Romney and the top 1 percent have reserved seats.
I think huh? is responsible for single-handedly dragging down the average IQ of the entire country by several points...
Actually Schmed, I'd have to question the IQ of those who agree with funding NASA only for them to hoard all the REAL data while feeding us little tidbits of crap in order to keep the funding coming. We're suckers for not demanding that all NASA top officials kindly step away from their desks and leave permanently with only personal effects (coffee mug, etc.). We own everything in the building. If I see another moon image that has been "sanitized" (altered to hide what is actually there), I'm gonna puke!!
Last year, there was more money allocated in our budge for air conditioning in Afghanistan than NASA.
Desi – So what's your argument... "Hey... we're wasting even more money over here... so why not here too?" lol FAIL. So much for Medicare or SS... Desi wants AC in a war zone... oh... and excuses why NASA can't watch nine planets... lol FAIL.
Huh and other idiots like him are the same ones that would complain if NASA was sitting around staring at Jupiter lol.
farscape – Yeah.. how dare the U.S. taxpayers expect Nasa to watch the LOCAL universe... g_d forbid the collision had the potential to affect OUR planet... how dare Americans expect the SPACE AGENCY to monitor SPACE... right? How long have you run NASA? Right? You speak like a NASA-jusitifier. lol FAIL.
Monitoring?They use state of the art material.They should have more money.Also they helped with commercial jet development.They feed the brain of humanity,science.They are the future.
Thank you huhSupporter. You just proved my point.
I agree Huh? In fact, NASA has accomplished little more than regurgitating WWII Nasa bottle rocket technology while CONSUMING massive amounts of funding. The idea they can't "watch nine planets" using a couple of old computers is NASA-speak. "We're just too darn important to watch what's blowing up in our local universe." lol PULL NASA'S FUNDING. THE "PREP PARTY" is over.
You don't know.NASA is much more important.Who got us to the moon?NASA.Many inventions came from them.
NASA pluses- Teflon, ball bearing precision, miniature electronics, advanced computer technology, ceramics technology, precision medical monitoring equipment, solar flare warnings, weather satellites, food preservation and portable packaging, advanced metal alloys, wireless satellite and communications technology, incrfeased understanding of molecular and nuclear physics, use specific plastics, better emergency responder gear and equipment. And many more things.
NASA negatives-0
On the website of the astronomer who recently discovered an interesting cloud formation on Mars and he reports that the fireball didn't cause an impact with any remnants. He shows pictures of Jupiter from yesterday morning (very good ones.)
http://exosky.net/exosky/
Larry
Thank you for that link!
very funny. NOT. That link opens GAY P0RN people.
How can a ball of gas have a "surface?" Isn't Jupiter a gaseous planet? What exactly is getting hit by these asteroids and comets that hit Jupiter? I'm not trying to be flip, just seeking an explanation.
It is the atmosphere that is being hit. Similare to when a meteor hite earth. It is the burning as it travels through the atmosphere that is visible. The actual hit on the ground is not visible. I'm not sure if the gas on jupiter is ever dense enough to be classified as ground like we have here on Earth.
james,
You are correct that Jupiter has no "surface," rather an every increasing density and pressure until it turns to liquid. The object doesn't necessarily "impact" but it does begin to burn up VERY quickly and if it shatters, all of it's energy is released at once, like an explosion. For extra credit, look up the Tunguska event.
There is some kind of core or surface on Jupiter or it cant have magnetism.
No surface but a strong gravity and atmosphere to burn up an asteroid.
It does have a rock/metal core.And metallic hydrogen.
Sure wish we could have seen more of this event,this is really fantastic science and glad we have people around to see and share these things with us.
Look, I ain't sayin it's aliens..........but........it's aliens.
My other go to was:
hey...at least it avoided Uranus. but that's more of a verbal joke than a written one.
It would have been so cool to be viewing Jupiter when the impact took place. Jupiter is fascinating enough even when it's not being hit by something. Way to go, backyard astronomers!
Had a telescope but the judge ordered it removed.
LOL. Me too, should have been pointing it at the sky rather than the neighbor's window
I thought Jupiter didnt have a solid surface?
It doesn't, but entry into an atmosphere causes heat due to friction. Since Jupiter is a gas giant, some of the contents of its atmosphere can catch fire briefly, hence a fireball effect upon 'impact.'
True, the article is technically misleading about Jupiter's "surface" being hit. It would be better to say it hit the atmosphere.
It does have a solid surface at its center, which basically, last I read, amounted to a giant diamond.
I don't think it is believed to be a diamond (compressed carbon), but rather metallic hydrogen. It is the likely source of its immense magnetic field.
No.It is a rock and metal core.
iron/nickel is a must for a core to run an electromagnetic field.. hydrogen does not. Our Sun had plenty of iron in it's core. therefore it works for magnetic as well as gravity
Metallic hydrogen does work with a magnetic field.It makes up much of Jupiter.
Basic science should tell you that Jupiter has a solid core. Denser materials always sink. So imagine all the rocky meteors etc that have crashed into Jupiter. All the denser materials will all eventually sink to the center. So yeah it has a solid core, probably larger than Earth.
Pssshya..........comet.
Now Jupiter has its Roswell
Maybe one of these asteroids will target the Mars rover.
Is that you Sarah Palin? I know you can see Russia from your porch, can you also see Jupiter? How exactly can an asteroid target a rover on another planet?
While galloping through the heavens on his mighty velociraptor, Jesus would fire one off from his asteroid cannon, it is kinda like those t-shirt cannons they use at tractor pulls.
@Derp:
Win.