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

wtf AGAIN

[Pojut]

Wasn't there a similar impact last year observed around this time as well? /offtopic Coincidentally, I posted about this on my site this morning

Re:wtf AGAIN

[Anonymous Coward]

by the same guy as well! he must have a telescope pointed at jupiter at all times.

I am not an astronomer, but it looks like

[Phizzle]

a collision of this magnitude would pretty much destroy our happy little blue ball... Yay for Jupiter!