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Amateur Astronomers Spot Jovian Blast

Posted by timothy on from the that-is-awesome dept.

RocketAcademy writes "Spaceweather.com reports an explosion on Jupiter, which was detected by two amateur astronomers. According to Spaceweather.com, the event occurred at 11:35 Universal Time on September 10. Dan Peterson of Racine, Wisconsin, observing through a 12-inch Meade telescope, observed a white flash lasting for 1.5-2 seconds. George Hall of Dallas, Texas was capturing a video of Jupiter at the time, which also captured the event. It's believed that the explosion was due to a comet or small asteroid collision. Similar events were observed in the past, in June and August 2010."

27 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Where's the Kaboom? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Jupiter-shattering kaboom!

  2. Obligatory by Revotron · · Score: 3, Funny

    "All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there."

    1. Re:Obligatory by olsmeister · · Score: 2

      Kind of reminds me of the Saga of Seven Suns series of books by Kevin J Anderson.

  3. random thoughts... by Tastecicles · · Score: 3, Interesting

    SL-9 was a farside impact. This, apparently, was a nearside (not much detail in the video). We should be worried, it could easily, since it obviously came from within Jupiter's orbit, have intersected with Earth. Anybody who has access to the object's orbital parameters which show that this would have been with 100% certainty, impossible, please feel free to call me a paranoid freak at this point; but we are overdue an ELE (Extinction Level Event) by about 15 million years (I keep reading around the science journals about ELEs happening about every 50 million years, the last one was what? 65 million years ago (the K-T Event)?

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    1. Re:random thoughts... by Lithdren · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why bother worrying about it? While I agree that we should be looking for these things to prevent the entire planet from getting sterlized in a single blinding flash of light, why worry about it? Either its going to hit in your lifetime, or its not. Until one is found you can do something about, there's no point in worrying about it, since the one we dont see coming we cant stop. Dead is dead, learn to enjoy life while you have it and stopy worrying about ELE events that are 'overdue'.

    2. Re:random thoughts... by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      we are overdue

      Statistics do not work that way!

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    3. Re:random thoughts... by Deadstick · · Score: 3, Insightful

      but we are overdue an ELE (Extinction Level Event) by about 15 million years

      Welcome to the Monte Carlo Fallacy...

    4. Re:random thoughts... by onemorechip · · Score: 2

      There's a good chance it passed through a keyhole on an earlier pass near Jupiter, and hence struck the planet this time around. I would suspect a keyhole for Earth collision would be much smaller than one for a Jupiter collision. I'm not familiar with the math involved, but I would expect comets and asteroids to strike Jupiter relatively often; Earth, not so frequently.

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    5. Re:random thoughts... by NatasRevol · · Score: 2

      Space is big. You wouldn't believe

      I loved the stat that came from Voyager 1.

      It's been going 38,000 mph for 35 years. And it's just now leaving our local solar system.

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    6. Re:random thoughts... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's been going 38,000 mph for 35 years. And it's just now leaving our local solar system.

      Another stat I love: How many man-hours of effort have been put into determining safe courses for our probes to pass through the main asteroid belt, in total over all outer-solar-system probes?

      Zero.

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    7. Re:random thoughts... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Soooo, and you suggestion is??

      Fund more telescopes for NEO (and other object) discovery and tracking. We have a network of telescopes doing this, but it is woefully inadequate for searching the skies sufficiently thoroughly. Early detection of potential impactors is the only chance we have of saving ourselves if/when the Big One comes. And it's only an "if" because it might not happen for many millions of years and who knows if our ancestors will be around then.

      We should also be funding the development of the actual capability to deflect one. A gravity tractor craft is actually a pretty simple concept and achievable with todays tech given sufficient lead time, but I don't think we should risk the extra time it takes to go from concept to implementation once we do find one.

      The main thing is more detection and tracking, though, because the lead time is essential. This should be considered a major defense priority. But it seems to be hard for people to take it seriously enough, because nobody can say if it will happen in any of our lifetime's.

      Of course there's also the remote chance that an long-period comet hits us from the direction of the sun and we end up with basically no warning even with a ridiculously extensive discovery effort. In that case it's que sera sera.

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    8. Re:random thoughts... by Hentes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You sort of answered yourself. If he was talking about a regular cloud of objects hitting Earth then we are not overdue but already dodged it.

    9. Re:random thoughts... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2

      But the odds of some *specific* object disturbed by Jupiter hitting the Earth may be vastly *higher*.

      The odds of such an object existing are low.

      I mean at the end of the day Apophis may have a 100% chance of hitting us, or it might have a 0% chance of hitting us. We can only estimate based on what we know if its orbit. Without knowledge of a specific Jupiter-orbit object, we can only estimate based on the odds of potential disturbed orbits intersecting earth. This is how conditional probability works.

      As far as the "maybes" go, NEOs are more likely to be dangerous than objects kicked around by Jupiter.

      we've had more than 5 'city-killer' sized objects pass inside the Moon's orbit.

      First let's keep in mind that even at that close earth is still a small target. A bulls-eye 1/3700th the size of the dartboard.

      I'm not sure what counts as "city-killer", but this NASA chart shows 8 objects at less than 1 Lunar Distance, all of greater than 50km at the low end of estimated size and at greater than 8 km/s relative velocity.

      Of course before getting too scared about the term "city killer", we would then have to look at the odds that such an impact hits a city (extremely low) or even land (not that high).

      You're unlikely to get hit by a truck on any given crossing, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to keep doing it.

      Yes. The correct reason to worry is because we aren't watching the skies well enough, not because an impact on Jupiter means there might be some other object from the vicinity headed to earth. It doesn't.

      We definitely need more asteroid discovery and tracking.

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    10. Re:random thoughts... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2

      If the chances are one in millions, then no, it shouldn't be. Even a "city-killer"

      "Even"? Objects like that are common. Apophis alone has more than one-in-a-million odds as currently estimated, and the estimated 500MT impact would be over 10,000 times larger than "city killer". There are plenty of objects out there of sufficient size where it's a global extinction event wherever they hit. We just don't know where they are, or if their orbits are such that they threaten us.

      You can't just look at the odds,. You also have to look at the impact. The die has already been cast. There are objects out there that are either a threat to us, or they aren't, and while the odds of an impact in any given year are terribly low, we don't know if that means we're not going to see one for a million years, or if we're going to get hit and then not see one for a million years.

      I approve of a token effort that ramps up along with civilization

      A token effort is a useless effort. Might as well say you approve burning a pile of cash and hoping it appeases the asteroid gods. And what does the ramping up of civilization have to do with it? We're just as screwed regardless of our civilization level. The relevant benchmarks are 1) are we capable of detecting them and 2) are we capable of doing something about it, and we're past both.

      there are higher priority things to worry about, like extreme solar flare events.

      And studying solar weather to try to predict such events necessarily means our asteroid detection effort must be token, eh? Prioritization doesn't mean ignoring other problems.

      Solar flares are more common but less likely to cause major damage not counting communication satellites but rather human death, and are tougher to actually mitigate the effects of if one is dangerous. Impacts are less common but have vastly more destructive potential, and if our detection effort is adequate we have the ability to completely nullify them.

      To me that puts them pretty close in priority. And if we had our priorities straight, there would be ample money to do both along with many other priorities.

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  4. Obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wow, the way things are going, in a few years they'll be able to detect blasts from Uranus.

  5. One thing I love about astronomy... by osu-neko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of the places where amateurs still make many observations and discoveries.

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  6. Actual video please? by slagheap · · Score: 3, Informative

    The linked video is to a very cheesy still image montage about comet/asteroid impacts, and only shows this recent Jupiter impact as a still screenshot of the video playing on someone's computer.

    Anybody have a better link? At least to a real still of the event?

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    1. Re:Actual video please? by slagheap · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ah, here it is... linked from within the spaceweather.com link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/19299984@N08/7976507568

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      First against the wall when the revolution comes
    2. Re:Actual video please? by cusco · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I find this more than a little disturbing. I remember when Comet Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter and astronomers were saying that the impact was a 'once in a lifetime' or 'once in a century' event. Just a couple of years ago other scars from an impact that wasn't witnessed (possibly far side) showed up, and now we have another. Sure, it might be a statistical fluke and there may not be another impact for 500 years, but it seems to me as though estimates of the amount of material wandering around the inner solar system might be quite low.

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  7. Thank you Jupiter! by infidel_heathen · · Score: 3, Informative

    If Jupiter wasn't sweeping up all those comets and asteroids, we'd be getting hit by them.

    1. Re:Thank you Jupiter! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If Jupiter wasn't sweeping up all those comets and asteroids, we'd be getting hit by them.

      This is actually part of the "rare Earth" hypothesis. For intelligent life to evolve on a planet, you may need a Jupiter sized "cosmic vacuum cleaner" to keep the ELEs from becoming too frequent.

    2. Re:Thank you Jupiter! by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2

      Though with Jupiter's potential to pull in TNOs or Oort Cloud objects, it's actually unclear whether Jupiter is a net benefit or detriment.

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    3. Re:Thank you Jupiter! by Kittenman · · Score: 2

      Asimov (again) said that the Solar System consisted of Jupiter and assorted rubble.

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  8. Going to try to spot the scars by RapidEye · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'll get out my 18" f/4.5 Obsession tonight and see if I can spot the scars.
    The last time this happened, there were black holes in Jupiter's clouds that persisted for several weeks.
    Unlike the last time this happened, its perfectly clear here in the Carolinas!
    Amateur Astronomers FTW!

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    1. Re:Going to try to spot the scars by cyberchondriac · · Score: 3, Informative
      There's no simple answer to that question. What constitutes a "decent" scope? Weeelll..

      A couple of things to know:
      * Aperture (thus ability to gather light) is more important than magnification.
      * There are essentially 3 kinds of scopes:
      1) Refractor (classic design)
      2) Newtonian reflector (more affordable). Newtonians are generally less money and give you more bang for the buck, and Dobsonian Newtonians are even better bargains, though a dob can't track objects as they can't use an equatorial mount. I have an 8" dob, and a small 80mm refractor, but what I'd really like is a
      3) Cassegrain: , which is like an optically "folded" newtonian - they're small, light, and powerful, but not as cheap as newtonians.
      You can look here for starters: http://www.telescope.com/ (Orion)

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  9. Re:Is this true about it being a big cleaner? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Wouldn't it just be a big randomizer of orbital paths? Why does it make kicking stuff away from us
    more likely than kicking stuff towards us? I'm not saying it isn't (a big cleaner), just curious
    about the logic.

    Because it is so big it can eject objects out of the solar system. And while it could easily direct an object towards the inner solar system, after billions of years the ones that it has ejected have decreased the total number enough that the inner solar system is a safe place.

  10. ..and here we go by cyberchondriac · · Score: 2

    Expect strange cylinders to start landing all over Earth in the next 24 to 48 hours. Wells almost got it right.

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