Impact On Jupiter Observed By Amateur Astronomers

Omomyid and other readers send in the news that the bright flash of an impact on Jupiter has been observed — and caught on film — by amateur astronomers. That WMV is from amateur Christopher Go. Here's Anthony Wesley's video (45 MB AVI; the site is already overloaded). In the larger video you can see the impact lasting for a couple of seconds, and a good deal of structure is visible. The amateurs report that no dark debris field developed around the impact site in the time before it rotated out of sight; this may indicate that the impactor burned up high in Jupiter's atmosphere. Soon professional astronomers, and possibly Hubble, will be on the job.

Comments

Re:wtf AGAIN

[TheMeuge]

Could be worse, he could be observing Uranus.

Re:wtf AGAIN

[JustOK]

Depends on publicity. If TMZ sends paparazzi, then it's a star.

Re:wtf AGAIN

[mcgrew]

Yes, which was also first observed by same amateur astronmer (Anthony Wesley).

Considering the extreme gravity of Jupiter, if the object that was crushed by Jupiter's gravity was named after its discoverer, would Jupiter be an Anthony Wesley Crusher?

Enough with the "Jupiter Impacts" already...

[Covalent]

SHUT UP, WESLEY!