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Impact On Jupiter Observed By Amateur Astronomers

Posted by kdawson on from the mere-pimple dept.

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.

4 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Re:wtf AGAIN by Average_Joe_Sixpack · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes, which was also first observed by same amateur astronmer (Anthony Wesley). Here was his post of the recent impact on CloudyNights

  2. Re:wtf AGAIN by arth1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's no "wtf AGAIN" about this at all. Jupiter is the vacuum cleaner (no pun intended) of the solar system, and any object with a highly elliptic orbit will run a great risk of a Jovian ending.
    This is what allows us to not be wiped out by crashing comets and meteorites every few years.

    But, it's always good to see a public servant do its job.

  3. YouTube link... by alyawn · · Score: 4, Informative

    Umm... if you don't feel like waiting all day for the AVI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo6LHljBKW8

  4. LOOP! by Itninja · · Score: 3, Informative

    This video is less than 2 seconds long! If you want to actually see anything...you will need to loop it. Not sure why the posted video wasn't looped already.

    --
    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.