Well , this is earnestly quite cool . Reports are coming in that a number of amateurish astronomers have spotted an asteroid or comet slamming into Jupiter . If confirm , this would be one of only a smattering of enter impacts ever on the accelerator pedal giant .
detail are few and far between at the moment . What we bang so far , from videos published online , is that there was a rapid brightening on the branch of Jupiter , which likely amount from an impact .
John McKeon , one of the astronomers , wrote on Redditunder the username bubbleweed : “ Exact clip was 00:18:45 UT [ on March 17 ] . If anyone was shoot Jupiter at that time , I advocate looking back through your videos . ”
McKeon ’s video of the impact is above .
The video of the impact seems to show that it was rather large and vivid , with a significant volley shoot into space as the asteroid make the upper cloud layer . This heavily guide to some sort of shock event .
A freestanding uranologist , Gerrit Kernbauer on YouTube , also captured the issue . He wrote : “ Thinking back to Shoemaker - Levy 9 , my only explanation for this is an asteroid or comet that embark Jupiters [ sic ] high air and burn up / explode very fast . ”
The telecasting by Kernbauer is above
TheComet Shoemaker - Levy 9that he references is a very famed shock event on Jupiter back in 1994 , when a comet that had broken up two years prior was observed slamming into Jupiter . The encroachment leave marks on the petrol giant , and some have suggested this latest impact may have similar residual mark in follow - up observations .
" Again , as with Shoemaker Levy 9 and other impact events , Jupiter is take the brunt of the Solar System ’s planetary sentinels , ” astronomer Nick Howes , formerly deputy director of the Kielder Observatory in Northumberland , tell apart IFLScience . “ A twinkling that sizing does betoken something quite sizable may have move Jupiter ’s upper atmosphere though , and the fact that it was detected by amateur astronomers yet again shows just how worthful their workplace is . "
The next step for this impact will be to , well , confirm that it actually was an shock . One way to do this will be to look for signs of the wallop in the upper swarm pack of cards of Jupiter , agree to Howes . IFLScience has ask NASA for official check , and this story will be updated when we see anything .
( Update : Rob Landis , from NASA ’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office , told IFLScience there were no architectural plan to surveil - up the detection with telescopes like Hubble . However , he confirmed that it was " believably the 6th time this [ an impingement ] has happened and been honour since July 1994 . " )
For now , though , those amateurish astronomers can bask in the glory of mayhap discovering one of only a handful of known impacts on Jupiter . There ’s even a chance they ’ll get to name it . May we suggestAsteroid McAsteroidface ?
