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Something Big Just Slammed Into Jupiter (gizmodo.com) 63

Posted by BeauHD from the bigger-than-a-breadbox dept.
An amateur astronomer in Texas captured a rare sight earlier this week when an apparent meteor slammed into Jupiter's thick upper atmosphere. Gizmodo reports: On Wednesday, amateur astronomer Ethan Chappel was on the lookout for Perseid meteors, reports ScienceAlert. But his telescope was trained on Jupiter with the camera running. Later, after feeding the data into a software program designed to detect impact flashes, Chappel was alerted to the event. Looking at the footage, Chappel saw a brief but discernible flash along the western portion of Jupiter's Southern Equatorial Belt, or SEB. Later that day, Chappel announced his discovery in a tweet: "Imaged Jupiter tonight. Looks awfully like an impact flash in the SEB." Chappel released a sharper version of the impact on Thursday, along with a colorized view of the apparent impact.

The flash appeared at at 4:07 a.m. UTC (12:07 a.m. ET) and lasted no longer than a second and a half, said astronomer Bob King in his coverage at Sky & Telescope. The impact still needs to be confirmed by other astronomers, but it certainly bears the hallmarks of a meteor strike, and not something that might be produced by Jupiter's lightning flashes or auroras. Looking at the flash, the size of the explosion seems small, but it's important to remember that Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. The meteor had to have been quite big to produce a flash of such prominence.
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Something Big Just Slammed Into Jupiter

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  • Very interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @03:44AM (#59073224)

    A couple weeks ago I was gifted an amateur telescope by my significant other. I have been watching Saturn and Jupiter almost every night since then. Of course, they are very small on my telescope but large enough to recognize. Last night, Jupiter and the Moon were very close to each other in the sky and they both looked very nice.
    Unfortunately, with the intense light pollution in my area, using a better telescope is money thrown, so for now I am satisfied with watching them as they show and reading astronomy news. And this piece of news right here is amazing.

    • Re:Very interesting (Score:4, Interesting)

      by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @04:19AM (#59073258)

      You may want to check for local astronomy clubs, or local college astronomy departments.

      We used to go out to a site one local member had where there was pretty much no local light pollution. They even had some much larger scopes you could use.

      If you have a nearby planetarium, you could check with them as well.

    • Look at Jupiter with more light, at sunset (Score:5, Informative)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @05:44AM (#59073352) Journal

      Looking at Jupiter late at night is like looking into a cop's flashlight - the contrast between bright Jupiter and the dark sky means you can't see much. Try looking right around sunset or sunrise. Shortly after Jupiter becomes visible you may be able to see more, while the sky is brighter.

      This also applies to Saturn and the moon. For these three objects, light pollution isn't that big of an issue (but use a fence or something to avoid direct glare right into your telescope).

      Another suggestion re Jupiter - don't forget to look for its moons, which are about 5 diameters away from the planet.

      • Re:Look at Jupiter with more light, at sunset (Score:5, Informative)

        by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @07:18AM (#59073446)
        FYI, the inverse square falloff of light means that anything lit by the sun is the same brightness regardless of distance. The stuff closer to you shines more light into your eyes, but that's exactly offset by the stuff appearing bigger to your eye due to their proximity. The additional brightness is spread over a larger area on your retina, exactly canceling out the additional brightness. That's why when you look outside on a sunny day, the grass right next to you is the same brightness as the grass several miles away. The same applies to the moon and the planets.

        However, magnification will reduce the brightness per angular area. In photography, this is governed by the f/stop. In order to maintain the same brightness at (say) f/5.6 when going from a 100mm to a 200mm lens (2x the magnification, meaning the image covers 4x as much area), you must make the aperture of the lens 2x wider so it collects 4x as much light.

        For observing the moon and planets through a telescope, this means it's unnecessary to reduce the contrast by viewing around sunset or sunrise. All you have to do is use an eyepiece with a higher magnification - the more magnification, the dimmer the image becomes (because the same amount of light is being spread over a larger area of your retina).
        • Most evenings in most places, we hit a limit of magnification. That limit is because the atmosphere can be hazy or turbulent. I have a 7mm eyepice that I've not used that much other than to see if the atmosphere is smooth. The few times I could actually see well with it, it was great. But useless magnification doesn't look good at all.

          Someone in this thread had mentioned looking at planets when they are near the horizon. Almost always too turbulent. We're looking through more atmosphere to start with, p

        • Sounds like you are a knowledgeable photographer. Also, not an astronomer. You are thinking in terms of 2X magnification, not 200X.

          Your inverse square law comment works for terrestrial objects, because they are all about the same distance from the sun. Jupiter is much further from the sun than our moon is, or our atmosphere. Imagine I shine a flashlight at a sheet of paper on my desk, in my office. Then imagine I turn the flashlight to point toward YOUR office. You'll find that my flashlight in Dallas do

      • Re:Look at Jupiter with more light, at sunset (Score:5, Informative)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @07:40AM (#59073490)

        Looking at Jupiter late at night is like looking into a cop's flashlight - the contrast between bright Jupiter and the dark sky means you can't see much. Try looking right around sunset or sunrise. Shortly after Jupiter becomes visible you may be able to see more, while the sky is brighter.

        Easier to just get a bunch of filters to suit what you're looking at:
        - Light pollution reduction for nebula.
        - "moon" filters for the moon and planets.
        - Solar filters for staring into the sun.
        - Instagram filters for when you influence your followers.

      • I can see three of them, two to one side and one further away on the other side. They are beautiful.

    • Unfortunately, with the intense light pollution in my area, using a better telescope is money thrown,

      Light pollution doesn't really affect observing the planets. They're bright enough to be mostly unaffected by skyglow. It's the dim, deep-sky objects like galaxies and nebulae which become harder to observe in urban areas (partly due to skyglow, partly due to your eyes not being able to fully dark-adapt due to ambient light)..

      A larger telescope will allow you to use greater magnification before running

    • Unfortunately, with the intense light pollution in my area, using a better telescope is money thrown

      Light pollution is something that can be dealt with providing you're happy with funky colours in your viewfinder. I live in the most light polluted place on earth and pretty much can't see the night sky without a city light suppression filter. I highly recommend you invest in one if light pollution is a problem.

    • If light pollution limits your domestic viewing, you might want to look at doing some remote observing, connecting via the internet to a telescope system somewhere with better site conditions and controlling the scope to do what observations you want. Many professional astronomers effectively do the same with telescopes in the multi-metre aperture class.

      An increasing number of serious amateurs and amateur clubs are making their systems available like that, both to their members and for hire to others, to o

  • Oh there's nothing to worry about, it's just a rouge meteorite. And don't believe any rumors about some massive complex metal structure within the big red spot. That's just fake news.

  • That's what happens when you have so much gravity concentrated in one planet. You would think Jupiter has enough gravity that it could share it with other planets instead of hoarding it all for itself. (/sarc if you can't tell).

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday August 10, 2019 @05:18AM (#59073318)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I suspect that, given enough material, most will collect into one or more giants. The galaxy arms are such a place. It's really hard to maintain an even distribution given that any invariance would start collecting more and more material as their gravitational force increases.
        • The phrase you're looking for is "positive feedback". Any initial irregularity in the distribution of gravitating material will amplify itself.

      • >"Without Jupiter and Saturn orbiting out past Earth, life may not have been able to gain a foothold on our planet, new simulations suggest."

        What is intensely interesting is just how many things had to be perfect for life to have sprung on Earth and had enough time to evolve. Many studies suggest without the Moon, there could not have been life, which means without the impact that created the Moon, no life. And the impact had to be so perfect to create a moon of the right size and distance to stabilize

        • It wasnt "just right", like some grand design or coincidence, we are the inevitable results of the chemistry and physics of this partof the universe. Mark my words, there will be others, and they may radically different, or uncannily similar, and developed to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the local chemical makeup, but there will be others. Life is natural and inevitable.

          • >"It wasnt "just right", like some grand design or coincidence"

            Nobody can know that.

            >"Mark my words, there will be others, and they may radically different, or uncannily similar, and developed to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the local chemical makeup, but there will be others."

            Given just how unbelievably huge the universe is, with countless galaxies, stars, and planets, it does seem likely.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
          >What is intensely interesting is just how many things had to be perfect for life to have sprung on Earth and had enough time to evolve. On the other hand, we would not be around if everything hadn't happened favorably for life. Therefore it's pretty obvious that any place in the universe where life originated had the optimal conditions for it...

      • 2016 [...] The two gas giants likely helped stabilize the solar system

        Quite surprising that someone could write that in 2016, a decade after the development of the Nice model [wikipedia.org], the Grand Tack and the various other attempts to produce a general model for planet formation which can handle both the formation of the Solar system, and systems containing "hot Jupiters" and the like.

        "Giant impacts" - otherwise "hierarchical planetary growth" - aren't exactly rare. Venus very likely had one, leaving it with it's 17

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      Well its our selfish sun's fault. This was going to be a binary system since they're pretty common in the universe, but no, our greedy sun had to hog most of the gasses for itself and left Jupiter hanging halfway. So now all Jupiter does is eat and grow fat while the sun steals all the credit.
  • as always, our thoughts and prayers go out to the Jovian gas-bags who were killed in this tragic event.
  • If only it'd been Uranus...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Sique ( 173459 )
      Some jokes never grow old, as they started out being old at the time of their first invention.

      • Well, I was going to do a Uranus joke, but looks like someone beat me to it.

        I guess I could make a Skeleton Men of Jupiter quip, but there are likely very few here who would get it (without running off to look it up first).

    • That does it. I officially vote to rename it Urectum.

  • Is Jeffery Epstein in jail right now . . . ?

    Although, Jupiter might be too old for his tastes.

  • "Looking at the footage". That's a blast from the past.
  • Based on Jupiter size and distance, the object that slammed into the big planet must have been really huge. Also, Jupiter gravity is also enormous, and is most likely to be the target to asteroids around.

  • "Something Big Just Slammed Into Jupiter "

    Perhaps Jupiter should have taken off his hat.

  • Couldn't it have been something leaving Jupiter?
    • Maybe in enough time, when we've colonized the upper atmosphere, where gravity and pressure are less - unless the swamp dwellers of Venus got there first when their planet turned into an EZ-Bake.

      Would make an interesting premise for a story - that we're part of the diaspora from a dying Venus, the same way we envision having to leave earth because we fouled our nest. An earlier , dinner Sun, and more unaccreted material floating around in space before it was mostly sucked into the planets or blasted away

    • Gravity is so strong on Jupiter that something existing "on" let alone leaving the planet is unlikely.

      • something existing "on" let alone leaving the planet is unlikely.

        About a million to one? As the opening page of War of the Worlds suggests about Mars.
        The opening page describes how the "puffs of gas" observed were thought to be meteors hitting the surface, not missiles being fired from it.

        And the date in the book, August 12, is pretty close, too. Don't say you weren't warned (grin!)

  • Chances are, if slamming transpired, Jupiter came out on top.

    Here on the blue marble, the metaphor usually runs the other direction: tiny thing slams into monster thing, because earth is a precious snowflake, whereas asteroids are soulless gnats.

    Hence a miniscule soulless thing can "slam into" a giant soulful thing, and the giant soulful thing takes a horrible beatdown (never mind that the asteroid suffers ionic disassembly rivalled in completeness only by a working transporter booth).

    ———

    O

  • rectangular (relative dimensions 1 x 4 x 9 )

    that could be danreous

  • The big guy out there is Earth's bodyguard. It keeps rocks like that from visiting us.
  • Working as intended.

  • Hopefully it's all of Slashdot's AC posts.

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