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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."

17 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."

  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 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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    5. 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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    6. 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.

  4. 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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  5. 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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    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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  6. 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.

  7. 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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