Something Just Smacked Jupiter and Here's the Photo to Prove It
Meghan Bartels, Science & Astronomy | 10 August 2019
Image of Jupiter appears to capture flash of an asteroid striking on Aug. 7, 2019.
Meghan Bartels, Science & Astronomy | 10 August 2019
Image of Jupiter appears to capture flash of an asteroid striking on Aug. 7, 2019.
A photograph captured by amateur astronomer Ethan Chappel appears to show an asteroid slamming into the gas giant Jupiter on Wednesday (Aug. 7). So far, astronomers are still waiting to see whether anyone else spotted the sudden flash, which was located over the planet's South Equatorial Belt.
"Today has felt completely unreal to me," Chappel wrote on Twitter. "Hoping someone else also recorded the impact to seal the deal." Chappel and fellow astrophotographer George Chappel post amazing views of the night sky at their website Chappel Astro.
There's plenty of precedent for such impacts at Jupiter: The planet's massive gravity tugs asteroids and other space debris toward itself. One group of astronomers has estimated an object 16.5 feet to 65 feet (5 to 20 meters) across slams into the planet between one and five times a month.
Those impacts are inevitable given the huge amount of rubble floating through the vastness of space. Astronomers have already identified more than 20,000 objects hanging around in Earth's neighborhood alone, and they know that tally is just a fraction of the total. Such space rocks hit Earth as well, and protecting Earth from them is the purview of a field known as planetary defense, but Jupiter takes more blows because of its mass.
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On his Twitter account, Ethan Chappel created a video (animated GIF) from the images he captured.
Code:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1159290187287015429
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