Jupiter has
apparently been smacked again by a rogue object hurtling through space, new images
from amateur astronomers and NASA reveal.
A giant
scar-like blemish has appeared in the clouds near Jupiter's south polar region,
which NASA observed in infrared after receiving a tip from an amateur
skywatcher in Australia. The likely impact appears to have occurred exactly 15
years after the remnants of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 bombarded
the planet in 1994 in an event that was widely predicted and scrutinized as
it happened.
The latest
impact was not predicted, and it was caught by chance.
"We were extremely lucky to
be seeing Jupiter at exactly the right time, the right hour, the right side of
Jupiter to witness the event," said Glenn Orton, a scientist at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement. "We couldn't have
planned it better."
Orton and his colleagues
used JPL's Infrared Telescope Facility atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii to collect
evidence of the impact. The initial call came from Anthony Wesley of Murrumbateman,
Australia, who told NASA he noticed a new dark "scar" suddenly appear on
Jupiter early Friday between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m. EDT (1000 and 1600 GMT).
A hit on Jupiter
In an
observation report posted to his Web site, Wesley said he almost missed
spotting Jupiter's new blemish entirely because he was tired after a late-night
skywatching session.
"It was a
very near thing," he wrote, adding that by 1 a.m. Local Time, he decided at the
last minute to keep observing for another half hour.
"I'd
noticed a dark spot rotating into view in Jupiter's south polar region and was
starting to get curious," Wesley went on. "When first seen close to the limb
(and in poor conditions) it was only a vaguely dark spot, I thought likely to
be just a normal dark polar storm. However as it rotated further into view, and
the conditions also improved, I suddenly realized that it wasn't just dark, it
was black in all channels, meaning it was truly a black spot."
The spot,
Wesley added, was moving too slow to be a moon and his previous observations
from two days earlier showed a pristine, spotless Jupiter. A short while later,
he decided to begin contacting people to spread the news of his find.
Orton and
his team haven't stopped tracking Jupiter, which is a gas giant and the largest
planet in the solar system.
The
near-infrared image collected by his team revealed the odd blemish, which
appeared to have a bright center, and what looked like debris to the northwest
of the likely impact site.
"It could be the impact of
a comet, but we don't know for sure yet," Orton said. "It's been a
whirlwind of a day, and this on the anniversary of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Apollo
anniversaries is amazing."
Other skywatchers have also been tracking the apparent Jovian
impact. Lars Zielke, a skywatcher based in Tvis, Denmark, spotted the tell-tale
scar to much excitement.
"My camera showed the spot clearly and I was lucky to
get at great sequence with the dark spot and Io passing by," he told SPACE.com.
"I was so thrilled that I didn't stop in time, so I missed the first hours of
work this morning."
Echoes of Shoemaker-Levy
9
Between
July 16 and July 22 in 1994, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was torn
apart by Jupiter's gravity as it swung past the planet. The remaining
pieces crashed into the planet while astronomers looked on with telescopes on
Earth and in space.
It was the
first collision of two objects within the solar system in ever observed from
Earth.
The impacts
were cataclysmic. More than 20 fragments - some as large as 1.2 miles (2 km)
across - slammed into Jupiter at 134,200 mph (215,973 kph) as the planet
rotated, sending plumes of hot gas into the Jovian atmosphere and causing dark
scars that lasted for weeks.
A similar
impact on Earth would cause widespread devastation on a global scale.
Video
- The Jupiter Crash of Shoemaker-Levy 9
The
Top 10 Greatest Explosions Ever
Image
Gallery - Jupiter and its Moons
SPACE.com Senior Writer Andrea Thompson contributed to this report from New York City.
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