Jupiter Impact 2009 Options

[SFJCody]

I think the forum might enjoy this, one of my favourite bits from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series:

People don't live on the Disc any more than, in less hand-crafted parts of the multiverse, they live on balls. Oh, planets may be the place where their body eats its tea, but they live elsewhere, in worlds of their own which orbit very handily around the center of their heads.

When gods get together they tell the story of one particular planet whose inhabitants watched, with mild interest, huge continent-wrecking slabs of ice slap into another world which was, in astronomical terms, right next door—and then did nothing about it because that sort of thing only happens in Outer Space. An intelligent species would at least have found someone to complain to. Anyway, no one seriously believes in that story, because a race quite that stupid would never even have discovered slood.

[Stu]

Some more pix here...

http://jupiter.samba.org/jupiter-impact.html

[volcanopele]

Yeah, some of those other images have really convinced me. You can clearly see a reddish plume deposit to the west and north of the impact site (or sites), akin to what was seen at many of the SL9 impacts.

[4th rock from th...]

Hi,

A nice place to check for updated daily planetary images is: http://alpo-j.asahikawa-med.ac.jp/Latest/Jupiter.htm
Very good images there, including methane one from earlier days.

[Stu]

A nice place to check for updated daily planetary images is: http://alpo-j.asahikawa-med.ac.jp/Latest/Jupiter.htm

Now that's a v useful site to keep an eye on, thanks! :-)

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

I've often wondered why we see so few planetary images from professional ground based observatories?? The quality of images from amateurs with 10-14" scopes is breathtaking these days, I wonder what this "impact" would look like with a 8 or 10 metre class telescope.

[4th rock from th...]

Yes, the ALPO Japan Planetary Section it's full of great stuff. For example, there are updated planetary maps and the "database" goes back some years. All amateur work but very organized and well documented.

[Stu]

From Twitter: "Glenn Orton from JPL is imaging the Jupiter impact site now w/ the NASA Infrared Telescope & he's confirmed it's an impact!!"

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

can you give me the link the the twitter sites your using?

[Hungry4info]

Die! Die! Watch them die!

can you give me the link the the twitter sites your using?

A quick Google search of the quoted text quickly reveals that it came from this Twitter.
http://twitter.com/mikesalway

[ElkGroveDan]

Too bad it wasn't Saturn.

[Decepticon]

[Phil Stooke]

EGD: "Too bad it wasn't Saturn. "

Very good point!

Phil

[Stu]

Interesting Twitter site to follow re this story...

http://twitter.com/LeighFletcher

[ugordan]

Would we be able to measure the temperatue and cross-referencing the decay with SL-9 data come up with a rough impact time? Which would then show us if it was the Earth-facing hemisphere or not - not that it would be a terribly useful piece of info.

Regarding a Saturn impact - two things:

1) It would probably be harder to spot by an amateur and thus more likely to be missed
2) I'm not sure Cassini could be retargeted so quickly anyway. It's running sequences preprogrammed weeks if not months ahead.