NASA鈥檚 Juno probe, which is currently circling Jupiter, has spotted what appears to be the fiery blast of a meteoroid plunging into the planet.
The serendipitous discovery was made by one of the spacecraft鈥檚 spectrometers that captures ultraviolet views of the planet. The instrument was observing the ultraviolet glow from aurorae dancing in Jupiter鈥檚 upper atmosphere when it detected a powerful burst of light that appeared in the giant world鈥檚 night-time skies in April last year.
Actual observations of such explosive events are rare, and only a handful of Jovian impacts have been spotted from Earth-based observatories in recent years.
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The researchers think the meteoroid that created the fireball could have been as large as 4 metres across, although a lower limit would put it at 1 metre wide.
If Juno can detect more of these events, it could give scientists a clearer picture of how many chunks of interplanetary debris smash into Jupiter each year.
鈥淲ith just one observation, there鈥檚 a limit to the statistical analysis we can perform,鈥� says Rohini Giles at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, who led the team that made the discovery. 鈥淏ut the mission was recently extended to 2025 and hopefully we will be able to catch more impacts during that time.鈥�
One reason why this yearly impact rate is of interest to researchers is that Jupiter鈥檚 sweeping-up of material can influence the composition of its stratosphere.
鈥淔ifteen years after the impact, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was still responsible for 95 per cent of the stratospheric water on Jupiter,鈥� says Giles. 鈥淐onstraining the impact rate is therefore an important element of understanding the planet鈥檚 composition.鈥�
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Such studies can also illuminate the history of our impact-scarred planetary neighbourhood, says Ashley King, a meteorite researcher at London鈥檚 Natural History Museum.
鈥淭he impact flux has varied both spatially and temporally,鈥� he says. 鈥淐onstraining the present-day rates in different locations can help us understand the transport of materials and dynamic evolution of the solar system.鈥�
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