Anthony Wesley records another impact on Jupiter!

Ice in Space (Australian Amateur Astronomy) ^ | 6/3/2010 | Anthony Wesley, by way of Mike Salway

[Yossarian]

In breaking news, Anthony Wesley reports another impact on Jupiter, this morning. In his words:

".. at approximately 20:30utc this morning I recorded a large fireball on Jupiter, it lasted a couple of seconds and was very bright.

This was a large fireball, but it doesn't seem to have left any mark, probably all gone in the upper atmosphere before it reached the clouds."

His preliminary image (a raw frame from the video) is shown below. The fireball can be seen in the upper left of frame. A video and more details will follow soon.

Stay tuned to IceInSpace for more, and for discussions, Anthony's breaking news thread is here.

Chris Go from the Phillipines was also recording Jupiter at the same time, and his video shows the impact - confirming that something definitely struck Jupiter! Chris was recording in the Blue channel, while Anthony was recording in the Red channel. I'm really looking forward to seeing Anthony's video too.

It's expected that a debris mark will be left behind during the next rotation of that longitude, and planetary astrophotographers will be on the lookout to record any dark spots left from the impact.

From Sky&Telescope:

"The location where the event occurred corresponds to the central meridian 300.1° system I, 34.1° system II, and 210.6° at system III, latitude 16° south. The region should be visible from about 4:00 to 6:30 UT on June 4th, favoring observers in Europe and Africa".

In an incredible coincidence, Hubblesite released a press release overnight saying that the July 19, 2009 impact (discovered by Anthony Wesley) was likely an asteroid. Follow the link to see the fantastic images of the 2009 "bird strike". Anthony is again at the right place at the right time, looking skywards towards Jupiter!

Stay tuned for more.

[Yossarian]

Cool stuff! Jupiter's our big friendly neighborhood vacuum cleaner, and it looks like it took one for the team again yesterday.

There's an impact video, too! Check it out at: http://astro.christone.net/jupiter/jupiterimpact.wmv

[Yossarian]

Space List Ping, please!

[Myrddin]

We were lucky it took one for the team. If there is crap that large floating around and making visible impacts on Jupiter, we may not be as lucky at some point.

[ak267]

That impact was actually Obama’s poll numbers :)

[battousai]

Yay for Jupiter our solar systems shop-vac working as advertised :)

[Yossarian]

If there is crap that large floating around and making visible impacts on Jupiter, we may not be as lucky at some point.

That's why I'm a big fan of NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.

Among other tasks, it is going to catalog what objects are out there requiring potential "mitigation". ("Mitigation" equals "send Bruce Willis and his motley crew up there to take care of the thing".)

[Renderofveils]

Jupiter is quite figuratively a big vacuum cleaner. With its mass and gravitational tug it pulls quite a lot of “debris” into itself. Even the Patroclus and Menoetius comets became stuck in Jupiter’s Lagrange points.

[hoosierham]

I remember reading a science article which claimed that because of its size and large gravity sphere Jupiter basically sweeps up a lot of dangerous debris that would otherwise threaten Earth.

[KoRn]

Our guardian Jupiter could have saved us once again!

[Myrddin]

Deep Impact was a great movie. Relatively plausible. The Bruce Willis version was more entertaining...and not as plausible. It's a major undertaking just to send up a shuttle with supplies. If we discover something really serious headed our way, I'm inclined to line up the best possible menu of favorite foods and good movies. The mitigation would make the current oil gusher solutions look like child's play.

[Yossarian]

Blasphemer! Why, everybody knows that it's Great God Obama that keeps galactic debris out of Earth's way!

It's settled science!

[hoosierham]

obama IS a piece of ga;atic debris.

[sten]

cool that we saw it... and fortunate. I’d say it should be looked at as a warning

we are not safe from such occurrances

[shorty_harris]

Interesting. I was in Melborne in 1994 helping NASA record the SL9 impact with Jupiter.

[Blood of Tyrants]

You have to have no life to watch hours and hours of boring video of nothing happening.

[NonValueAdded]

“My God, it’s full of stars!!!”

[JudgemAll]

I was going to say that Zero must hate Jupiter.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks KoRn! Whew, that was close! ;')

• Something hit Jupiter ... again!

Jupiter has over sixty moons, most of which are small, and many of those move in retrograde, which is often considered diagnostic of capture. There's such a narrow window for capture -- lies between ejection and swallowing -- that these events are probably commonplace, and have been (on Jupiter in particular) throughout the existence of the Solar System.

Or (knowing wink to list) throughout the time Jupiter has existed in its current form...

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[bigheadfred]

Why, everybody knows that it's Great God Obama that keeps galactic debris out of Earth's way!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2528065/posts?page=28#28

[SunkenCiv]

additional:

• [7/22/09] Astronomy Picture of the Day
• [7/26/09] Hubble pictures Jupiter's 'scar'
• [7/26/09] Jupiter: Our Cosmic Protector? (How the planet protects us from cosmic disaster)
• [7/31/09] Astronomy Picture of the Day
• [9/08/09] Astronomy Picture of the Day
• [6/06/10] Hubble Space Telescope Captures Rare Jupiter Collision