Wednesday, 16 September 2009

New impact discovered on Jupiter


Not so new as it actually happened a couple of months ago! The Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley who spends 6 hours per week observing Jupiter with his 14.5-inch telescope made the discovery on July 19th, almost exactly one year after the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

Follow-up observations with NASA's infra-red telescope on Hawaii and the newly upgraded Hubble Space Telescope confirmed that a collision had occurred, probably of an object around 1km across. As Glenn Orton of JPL commented, "We were extremely lucky to be seeing Jupiter at exactly the right time, the right side of Jupiter, to witness the event."

New research suggests that Jupiter interacts with cometary interlopers more often than previously thought, The captured comet typically orbits for years or even decades before crashing into Jupiter or being ejected by the strong gravitational field, Keep observing the giant planet for the next big event!

Link


Jupiter had brief encounter with icy companion