Was there a possible asteroid impact on the planet Jupiter recently?
An amateur ‘backyard astronomer’ peering through his telescope from his home in rural Australia has spotted a galactic event that Nasa’s own star-gazers had missed. Anthony Wesley, a computer programmer from Murrumbateman, a village north of Canberra, discovered that a comet or asteroid the size of the Earth had crashed into Jupiter, leaving a vast crater. His timing was impeccable. Not only does it come as the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of man’s first steps on the moon, but the impact would only have been visible for another few days. The collision was confirmed by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which uses a large infrared telescope positioned at the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii to capture an image of the crater, near the gas giant’s south pole. Within hours, his images had spread across the internet on science websites and amateur astronomers around the world were raving about the discovery. News of the impact came on the 15th anniversary of another comet s
A collision with a comet would leave a large crater on a planet but would not release enough energy to destroy the planet. For example, the largest craters on the moon, which make up the “seas”, are thought to have been caused by collisions with objects a few kilometres in size (about the same size as the solid nucleus of a comet). These impacts were large enough to leave craters hundreds of kilometres across and also to break through the solid crust of the moon and allow molten lava to flow up and create the dark basalt that we see, but clearly the moon was capable of surviving the impacts intact Sources: http://www.world-mysteries.com/sci_8.
As we reported yesterday, an amateur astronomer snapped evidence of an impact on Jupiter. Now, NASA has confirmed the black spot on the giant gas planet is in fact an impact and not just a weather-related disturbance. And Anthony Wesley has now made the biggest observation of his life. “It still feels very surreal right now,” he told Universe Today. “I guess it will take some time to really sink in (pun intended). I guess it shows that persistence and many hours at the scope eventually pays off.” The Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, has imaged the south polar region Jupiter, confirming the impact, which occurred on July 19. New infrared images show the likely impact point, with a visibly dark “scar” and bright upwelling particles in the upper atmosphere detected in near-infrared wavelengths, and a warming of the upper troposphere with possible extra emission from ammonia gas detected at mid-infrared wavelengths. Sources:
