Fireball on Jupiter

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!

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?

Is man made global warming causing an increase in comet impacts on Jupiter?
( sorry, feeling daft, couldn’t resist )

Jeff in Calgary says:
August 24, 2010 at 10:07 am
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.

Wouldn’t NASA first have to assure the Muslim world of its importance in the discovery of said PHA?

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?

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.

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 ?

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.

Thunderer Jupiter, as mythology calls it, has an electrical charm….

Bah! It’s just a pebble falling! (Astronomer Fred Flintstone et Al.)

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…..

Note also that similar flash on Saturn would have magnitude 6.4, so we can expect also flashes on Saturn.

“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?”
Don’t worry, they will. Research telescopes (like Keck and others) are typically looking at the many millions of other objects in the sky, such as galaxies, asteroids, individual stars, looking for exoplanets, etc. You get a lot more new data and discoveries this way instead of putting multi-million dollar telescopes on each of the planets at all times.
Standard procedure (at least as I’ve noticed) is that the impacts are reported, and they’ll turn Hubble or other optical (maybe some infrared) scopes on Jupiter and wait for the area that was hit to come back around. You don’t need a degree in astronomy to make a discovery, but the more you know the more likely it becomes.
Amateur astronomers are a great asset to astronomy is this way…they always have their eyes in the sky and can find things or events that would normally be missed by the big telescopes.

Jupiter is said to be a “failed star” which is hot within, as Earth is. This could just have been a Jupiter-style volcanic explosion. Jupiter always shows spots and belts, and nobody understands their formation, so presumably Jupiter features a surface dynamism which causes lots of events which we look at like a deer in headlights.

Jupiter’s well-known as the Solar System’s own “Hoover” (Or maybe “Dyson” as it’s a ball!), sucking up the potentially life-threatening objects that have sufficiently eccentric orbits to intersect Earth’s orbit.
Saturn may have a role, but it’s mass is substantially less than that of Jupiter.
The role of the amateur astronomer in planetary and lunar observation is both well established and respected by their professional counterparts, who’s telescope time is both limited and devoted to deep sky observation.

Oh, re NZ Willy.
Jupiter has no “surface” as such, its a gas giant, probably with a rocky core, but such is the pressure deep within it, the gaseous elements are so compressed (Even at the high temperatures existing within) that the Hydrogen is turned to a liquid, exhibiting metallic properties.
Volcanism isn’t possible with such internal structures, the escape velocity needed to propel gases from the core region, is immense.

Jupiter may be the Hoover of the Solar System (with Saturn its Minivac?), but it’s also the bull in the china shop. Its gravity (along with that of Saturn and the other gas giants) is what perturbs comets and asteroids into those dangerously elliptical orbits it scavenges. On balance we’d probably be a bit safer without it.

Adam Gallon says:
August 24, 2010 at 12:26 pm
http://milesmathis.com/atmo.html

Digital cameras have gotten cheaper and better, so photo-astronomy is accessible to more folks. Planets are good targets for those who live near urban light pollution.
I think it is sad that development means more lights at night, and we’ve lost the view of the brilliant and beautiful sky. The nearest truly dark sky from where I live is almost a 2 hour drive.

lightning bolts indeed
kinda’ like a giant bug zapper

Yes, it seems it’s only a matter of time. Take a look at the “data” at the Holocene Impact Group for the amazing number of hits, probable hits, and possibilities to be investigated.
Can’t remember the dates, but something like 24 ocean impacts (oceans 70% of Earth’s surface, right?) were discovered in a matter of a few years, with just the beginning of this kind of research. A much better way to spend our dollars than wasting a focus on essential-for-life CO2.

Or we’re witnessing the start of the next great red spot due to induction from jupiter sweeping through the heliosphere.

I wouldn’t be suprised to hear that Jupiter is warmer than it should be and it’s all because of Anthroprogenic Galactic Warming. It can only be a matter of days before some university climatologist announces: “If Earth weren’t so hot with manmade CO2 these impacts on Jupiter wouldn’t be happening as frequently has they have been in the past century; manmade CO2 causes perturbations in the fabric of the solar system and what we see happening on Jupiter will soon happen on Earth; we are destroying the Universe.”
I’ll bet the first Climatologist with a PhD in Zuni Basket Making Environmental Impact to say that outloud is going to be invited to the Oval Office and nominated for a Noball Prize in Ecological Physics! Watch! They’ll probably also be invited on The View too.

With that many near misses (1044) and the larger ones listed and all of these occurring between august and december, this article could have been more informative. Is there a belt of these in a strip that intersects the E orbit between aug-dec? What is the probability of a hit (we don’t need McI and McK’s statistical powers to calc this? All we need to know is the orbit of the strip. The orbit of the strip must cut the edge of E orbit during aug-dec. otherwise we would come into the strip twice in one year. Surely for the worst potential hazard to the planet, this work must have ben done.