Impact On Jupiter Observed By Amateur Astronomers 53
Omomyid and other readers send in the news that the bright flash of an impact on Jupiter has been observed — and caught on film — by amateur astronomers. That WMV is from amateur Christopher Go. Here's Anthony Wesley's video (45 MB AVI; the site is already overloaded). In the larger video you can see the impact lasting for a couple of seconds, and a good deal of structure is visible. The amateurs report that no dark debris field developed around the impact site in the time before it rotated out of sight; this may indicate that the impactor burned up high in Jupiter's atmosphere. Soon professional astronomers, and possibly Hubble, will be on the job.
Re:wtf AGAIN (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, which was also first observed by same amateur astronmer (Anthony Wesley). Here was his post of the recent impact on CloudyNights [cloudynights.com]
Re:wtf AGAIN (Score:5, Informative)
There's no "wtf AGAIN" about this at all. Jupiter is the vacuum cleaner (no pun intended) of the solar system, and any object with a highly elliptic orbit will run a great risk of a Jovian ending.
This is what allows us to not be wiped out by crashing comets and meteorites every few years.
But, it's always good to see a public servant do its job.
Chris Go is a Machine (Score:3, Informative)
Chris Go [cstoneind.com] is probably the world's premier amateur observer of Jupiter. He also discovered the change of Oval BA to a red color similar to the Great Red Spot.
He lives in Cebu City, Philippines where he has excellent "seeing" most nights. "Seeing" is the term for how steady the atmosphere appears to be and is critical for getting good images of the planets.
YouTube link... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:wtf AGAIN (Score:3, Informative)
It won't. A gas giant is a star that never happened. There' no do-over whereby a gas giant might become a star subsequently.
The mass difference between Jupiter and even the smallest star is still huge -- like, 50+ times what it currently weighs. I don't believe what you ask is possible.
LOOP! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:wtf AGAIN (Score:2, Informative)
That joke never gets old - ever.
Fixed