From Spaceweather.com
On August 20th at 18:22 UT, two amateur astronomers in Japan independently recorded an apparent impact on Jupiter. Masayuki Tachikawa of Kumamoto city was first to report the event. His movie of the fireball shows the fireball scintillating (twinkling) along with other features on the planet — persuasive evidence that this is a genuine event on Jupiter. Soon after Tachikawa made his report, Tokyo amateur astronomer Kazuo Aoki realized that he had recorded the fireball, too:
The ~800 km separation of the two observers rules out an event near Earth and reinforces the association of the fireball with Jupiter. The most likely explanation: A small comet or asteroid hit the giant planet.
This is the third time in only 13 months that amateur astronomers have detected signs of impact on Jupiter. The earlier events occured on July 19, 2009, and June 3, 2010. Jupiter is getting hit more often than conventional wisdom would suggest, leading many researchers to call for a global network of telescopes to monitor Jupiter 24/7 and measure the impact rate.
“Like the event of June 3rd, this fireball did not produce any visible debris,” notes John Rogers, director of the British Astronomical Association’s Jupiter section. “Here are some hi-resolution images taken 1-2 rotations before and 1-2 rotations after the event. As the observers commented, there was no visible mark (not in RGB, nor UV, nor methane), post-impact. Dark brown spots on the North Equatorial Belt were already there before the fireball.”
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Jupiter’s impact reminds us all of this:
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.
On August 24, 2010 there were 1144 potentially hazardous asteroids.
| Asteroid |
Date(UT)
|
Miss Distance
|
Mag.
|
Size
|
| 2005 NZ6 |
Aug 14
|
60.5 LD
|
18
|
1.3 km
|
| 2002 CY46 |
Sep 2
|
63.8 LD
|
16
|
2.4 km
|
| 2010 LY63 |
Sep 7
|
56 LD
|
18
|
1.2 km
|
| 2009 SH2 |
Sep 30
|
7.1 LD
|
25
|
45 m
|
| 1998 UO1 |
Oct 1
|
32.1 LD
|
17
|
2.1 km
|
| 2005 GE59 |
Oct 1
|
77 LD
|
18
|
1.1 km
|
| 2001 WN5 |
Oct 10
|
41.8 LD
|
18
|
1.0 km
|
| 1999 VO6 |
Oct 14
|
34.3 LD
|
17
|
1.8 km
|
| 1998 TU3 |
Oct 17
|
69.1 LD
|
15
|
5.3 km
|
| 1998 MQ |
Oct 23
|
77.7 LD
|
17
|
1.9 km
|
| 2007 RU17 |
Oct 29
|
40.6 LD
|
18
|
1.0 km
|
| 2003 UV11 |
Oct 30
|
5 LD
|
19
|
595 m
|
| 3838 Epona |
Nov 7
|
76.8 LD
|
16
|
3.4 km
|
| 2005 QY151 |
Nov 16
|
77.7 LD
|
18
|
1.3 km
|
| 2008 KT |
Nov 23
|
5.6 LD
|
28
|
10 m
|
| 2002 EZ16 |
Nov 30
|
73.9 LD
|
18
|
1.0 km
|
| 2000 JH5 |
Dec 7
|
47 LD
|
17
|
1.5 km
|
 |
Notes: LD means “Lunar Distance.” 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach.
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Well if a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid was found that was on a collision course, that would certainly put all the AGW spending on hold while we figured out how to save us from the Asteroid.
Never ceases to amaze me.. That fireball blot on the image is roughly the size of earth.. I mean I like explosions and fire as much as the next guy, but wow!
“…that would certainly put all the AGW spending on hold….”
You wish!
Seems strange so many asteroids/small comets hitting Jupiter over such a short period?
I wonder if it could be some sort of electromagnetic plasma phenomenon?
It may just be that Jupiter, acting in effect as a giant asteroid magnet, regularly sucks in many more objects than we had previously estimated. And just now do we have the kind of volunteer telescopic coverage needed to provide evidence of that.
Is man made global warming causing an increase in comet impacts on Jupiter?
( sorry, feeling daft, couldn’t resist )
It is a good thing that we have Jupiter to draw these things in. If they are traveling through space at 50,000mph they would easily cover the distance between Jupiters orbit and our own within a year. By this time next year, we could be feeling those instead
Wouldn’t NASA first have to assure the Muslim world of its importance in the discovery of said PHA?
It’s the Jupetarians, (Jupiteroids?), having a war, obviously.
So an asteriod was supposed to have killed all the dinosaurs on earth and caused world-wide climate change. Are we seeing that happening in Jupiter?
wws says:
August 24, 2010 at 10:11 am
I agree. The recent flurry of observations may be just chance (the “proverbial” lucky streak), but perhaps more amateurs are monitoring Jupiter than in the past. Comet Shoemaker-Levy must have provided some impetus, though its impacts left dark regions that persisted quite a while. The recent impacts without lasting marks have really proven that fulltime monitoring is important.
Amateur astronomers are much more welcome in the professional astronomy community than amateur climatologists are in the professional climatology community. Perhaps eventually the two groups will figure out that they both want to find new knowledge and that each can help the other. We seem to have a ways to go.
The gas giants do manage to sweep up, eject, or knock things out of the solar system plane and that reduces the number of impacts on Earth. Kinda nice that they’re out there!
A large object hitting Earth would definitely result in Climate Change.
Oddly enough and totally coincidentally, I watched Deep Impact last night. It really was a good movie.
The number of impacts on Jupiter is extremely unsettling.
There but for the grace of God……….
Why do amateurs are always the first ones in spotting these events while great sages are only able to watch for their wrinkles on their faces-to correct them asap with botox ?
Having Jupiter where it is to draw off killer asteroids, well and truly validates the hypothesis that surrounding cities with trailer home parks draws off tornadoes. Hey! It’s as valid as the concept of man changing the global climate.
Hee hee. Sometimes I just kill myself.
It’s interesting that the impact zone is in the northern hemisphere (the images are inverted in a telescope). Most reported impacts are in the South, and that is where we have seen the most volatility in the Jovian atmosphere; new red spots, fading of cloud bands, recovery of the same.
John Cross argues that Jupiter weather is a result of internal volatility, that the planet supplies it’s own power through gravitational compression. This is convenient for him because we can not see the interior to prove it one way or the other.
The strongest evidence we have that Jupiter’s weather is due to the planet putting on weight is that the majority of the observable “weight gain” coincides with the South, where we see the climate changing.
This could become a sort of test for the theory. Will the North develop unusual weather patterns due to this northern impact?
I’m interested to see.
Otoh, it could have been a larger then normal lightning strike.
In which case, darn.
Thunderer Jupiter, as mythology calls it, has an electrical charm….
Perhaps there are Mayans on Jupiter also.
Bah! It’s just a pebble falling! (Astronomer Fred Flintstone et Al.)
My estimate is, that it was bright as Ganymed, so it would have visual magnitude -29.5, that’s 14.5 times brighter than Sun, if flash was at distance of 100 km on Earth.
V(flash)= V(Ganymed)= 4.4 mag
V(Sun)= -26.6
D(Jupiter)= 612.5 *10^6 km
Go here:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar?date=0&utc=2069%2F07%2F20+20%3A17%3A43&jd=2476948.34564&img=-k1&sys=-Sf&eyes=0&imgsize=600&orb=-b2&lat=50&ns=North&lon=7%B0&ew=East&hlat=90%B0&hns=North&hlon=0%B0&elements=
And set “Time” on 2010/09/20…..
Seeing as how only amateurs witnessed this, I need to wait until a state-funded astronomer chimes in to determine whether or not this really happened. Folks outside of the establishment are not to be trusted. Does Kerry Emaneul have a degree in astronomy perchance?
Note also that similar flash on Saturn would have magnitude 6.4, so we can expect also flashes on Saturn.
Like a photon smashing an electron….