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Mystery Spot on Jupiter Baffles Astronomers

Posted by Hemos on from the the-black-big-red-spot dept.

seanmeister writes "From Space.com: "Astronomers have spotted a strange, obvious and inexplicable black spot near the equator of Jupiter. A picture of the object is circling this planet electronically as researchers scratch their heads about what they've found. A second image, taken on another day by a different photographer, contains a similar looking spot. As of early today, the second image had deepened the mystery. Some astronomers were at first puzzled over whether the two photos show the same thing or not. As it turns out, they do not." I, for one, welcome our new monolith overlords!"

3 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Thanks by mikehoskins · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Doesn't this look alot like Shumaker-Levy, or however you spell it?

    Asteroid impact? Comet? Small (former) moon?

  2. amateur astronomers by grosa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's pretty cool that astronomy is pretty much the only field where amateur work is not only accepted but also encouraged. if it wasn't for the thousands of people gazing up at the stars with their home telescopes, most of this stuff would get missed.

    it's pretty cool some of the things you can capture with a nice 4.5" scope and a modified webcam.

  3. Distance is relative by MacroRex · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "The black spot, accompanied by at least one plume, can be seen not far away from the Great Red Spot"

    Since the Gread Red Spot is twice the size of earth and I quickly estimate you could fit about two of the Red Spots between it and the black oddity, the distance between them is roughly four times the diameter of Earth. That's something like 50000 kilometers.

    Not far, indeed...