A bright flash spotted early yesterday in Jupiter鈥檚 swirling atmosphere was most likely due to a hit by a comet or asteroid, astronomers say. Although the impact is the fourth one seen in just over three years, the uptick does not mean Jupiter is getting hit more often, only that more people are looking.
鈥淛upiter has been taking hits like this for a long time,鈥� says of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just that now, amateur astronomers have the capabilities to detect them.鈥�
With the speed of digital communication, the army of enthusiasts scanning the skies can connect with professional astronomers to follow up on an observation almost instantly.
Advertisement
Seeing real-time impacts and studying the scars left on Jupiter will give scientists unique windows into the gas giant鈥檚 atmospheric properties. The events can also tell astronomers more about the impacting objects themselves, giving a better picture of the sizes and numbers of bodies swarming through the solar system.
鈥淭his is a remarkable tool for us professional astronomers,鈥� Marchis says. 鈥淲e cannot observe Jupiter continuously. But now when something like this happens, we can see it.鈥�
Cameras rolling
Amateur astronomer Dan Peterson of Racine, Wisconsin, first saw a bright flash near Jupiter鈥檚 equator through a telescope but didn鈥檛 manage to catch it on camera. One report was not enough to confirm the flash as an impact, so of what he saw to other astronomers.
Astrophotographer George Hall of Dallas, Texas, had been filming Jupiter that night with a small telescope and a web camera.
鈥淗ad [Peterson] not recognized the event and issued the alert, I would never gone back and reviewed my videos in enough detail to see the impact,鈥� Hall told 快猫短视频 in an email. Sure enough, Hall had captured .
In July 2009 a dark cloud of debris heralded an impact by what astronomers now think was a 500-metre-wide asteroid. Before that, the only observed impact was in 1994, when fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 rained down on Jupiter鈥檚 atmosphere.
Two more hits were spotted in June and August 2010, but the last one wasn鈥檛 large enough to leave a lasting mark.
This most recent impact seems to be similar to both 2010 events in terms of brightness, according to an analysis by of the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain.
Telescopes will be trained on the planet tonight to see if the impact left a scar. If so, astronomers may decide to follow up with the Hubble Space Telescope to determine the object鈥檚 trajectory and how deep it penetrated into Jupiter鈥檚 atmosphere.
Gravity shield
The recent spate of impacts highlights Jupiter鈥檚 role as cosmic street sweeper, clearing up debris that might otherwise hit Earth, says Glenn Orton of NASA鈥檚 Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
鈥淛upiter is a big gravitational vacuum cleaner,鈥� says Orton. 鈥淲e qualitatively know that Jupiter鈥檚 protecting the Earth. Without Jupiter we鈥檇 have a lot more impacts.鈥�
Catching more of Jupiter鈥檚 hits will help provide the first accurate census of bodies 100 metres across and smaller 鈥� those too small to see with telescopes 鈥� in the outer solar system.
鈥淲e鈥檙e getting good data on the population of small bodies that are out there. There鈥檚 not a lot that鈥檚 known about that,鈥� says of the University of California, Berkeley. 鈥淭his is a pretty new field that kind of just started in 2009.鈥�
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the 2009 impact caused a visible flash on Jupiter; it did not. Also, the earlier version stated that the brightness of the new flash was between that of the 2009 and 2010 events; it was actually similar to both 2010 flashes.
