Get your scorecards out — Jupiter just took another interplanetary hit. If it's confirmed it would be the 11th observed comet or asteroid strike at the gas giant since the pieces of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter in 1994.
A little more than a month after five amateurs independently recorded a similar flash, a team of astronomers, led by Ko Arimatsu of Kyoto University, filmed this most recent flare in Jupiter's cloud tops at 13:24 UT on Friday, October 15th.
The potential impact flash appears around the 12-second mark in this video of Jupiter made on Friday, October 15th.Arimatsu and the group used a surveillance system called PONCOTS as part of the Organized Autotelescopes for Serendipitous Event Survey (OASES) project to make their discovery. The event occurred in Jupiter's North Tropical Zone near the southern edge of the North Temperate Belt at latitude +20° North and longitude 201° (System II). From the video, the burst lasted about 4 seconds. It quickly rises into visibility, maintains a steady light for about 2 seconds and then swiftly disappears.
Ko Arimatsu / Kyoto University
According to the Europlanet Society, on average 6½ objects 10 meters across and larger (that is, big enough for amateurs to record) hit Jupiter each year. Aided by transient-alert software like DeTeCt, we've seen a steady uptick in the number of impacts in recent years, proving that the more we look, the more we see. The most recent impact, in September, didn't produce a visible impact scar. This one may not either. But both events make us keenly aware of the potential hazards that still lurk in our solar system.
Amateurs who photographed and took video of the Jupiter around the time of the potential impact are urged to contact either Marc Delcroix or Ricardo Hueso to provide confirmation of the event. Let us here at Sky & Telescope know, too! Just leave a comment, and I'll make sure to contact you.
Reader Comments
That's gotta be a lot bigger than 10M!
Here's the calculated effects on that (which is horsehit and surely has been narrative downsized - probably by a magnitude - maybe two or three.) [Link] Let's try a Mag 4 size adjustment.
Earth looks like a marble next to a basketball compared to jupiter and that thing was huge. It's probably not as big as this though: R.C.
Wow! That's Jupiter doing her job as last chance vacuum for our solar system. That would have surely destroyed earth.
LOL!
(you wrote that dude)...
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someone on jupiter just invented microwavable popcorn and left it in the oven for 1 minute too long.
what do you think about the rivers of methane on titan?
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and thanks, tho really, i'm just a simple bot [Link]
I always thought that CH looked kinda like a dark haired female Tom Petty. (RIP)
RC
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is that really possible?
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a few years back the front wheel on my titan went through the ice on the river near where i live - the bad spot was probably a beaver run underneath - thank goodness the beastie titan was in 4x4 low and i reversed without issue - other than the fresh scent of methane emanating from the driver's seat. [Link]
My father always had a flower garden down here but when we lived out in the Mojave we had food. Boiled peanuts. Yummm!
RC
but you knew that right?
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