Another Jupiter impact? Options

[volcanopele]

SL9 impacts occurred in darkness, this impact is on the daylight hemisphere, so it may be difficult to make comparisons based on brightness??

I agree, we need to be careful about comparing the brightness of the two given differences in detector sensitivity, exposure time, background brighness, etc. It would be interesting to see if a power output could be derived from the images Wesley and Go took of the flash.

[ngunn]

My impression on viewing Wesley's video is that there were subsidiary flashes separated in both space and time, perhaps indicating a pre-fragmented impactor. It's hard to be sure because of the way the whole image jumps around, though. (I'm sure somebody here could fix that. )

[ugordan]

My impression on viewing Wesley's video is that there were subsidiary flashes separated in both space and time

Pretty sure that's an artifact due to atmospheric seeing.

[Astro0]

A different look at Anthony Wesley brilliant video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ZzUL1dCRg
Here I created a version in negative...interesting effect.

[S_Walker]

Chris Go also caught the impact, though his was under far better seeing conditions. as mentioned earlier.

ADMIN: Same video as in Post#9

[S_Walker]

It's interesting to compare to the Galileo images of one of the SL9 impact flashes, which looked MUCH brighter. So we might not expect an impact scar from this one...

John

True John, though wasn't Galileo's observations taken in IR wavelengths? Big difference compared to visual wavelengths.

Correction: I see the Galileo observations were in Green light. My bad!

[Tom Tamlyn]

I read somewhere that the 2009 Wesley impact had caused astronomers to revise their estimate of the flux of Jupiter impacts. (I can't locate the reference, and don't recall if it the discussion was specific to a particular kind of impactor.)

Is it premature to discuss whether the 2010 Wesley/Go impact will suggest a further revision?

TTT

[Mongo]

The impact of a large object with Jupiter in July 2009

On 2009 July 19, we observed a single, large impact on Jupiter at a planetocentric latitude of 55^{\circ}S. This and the Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) impacts on Jupiter in 1994 are the only planetary-scale impacts ever observed. The 2009 impact had an entry trajectory opposite and with a lower incidence angle than that of SL9. Comparison of the initial aerosol cloud debris properties, spanning 4,800 km east-west and 2,500 km north-south, with those produced by the SL9 fragments, and dynamical calculations of pre-impact orbit, indicate that the impactor was most probably an icy body with a size of 0.5-1 km. The collision rate of events of this magnitude may be five to ten times more frequent than previously thought. The search for unpredicted impacts, such as the current one, could be best performed in 890-nm and K (2.03-2.36 {\mu}m) filters in strong gaseous absorption, where the high-altitude aerosols are more reflective than Jupiter's primary cloud.

[Byran]

http://planetary.org/blog/article/00002524/

Several large observatories in Hawaii -- Gemini, Keck, and IRTF -- attempted to view the impact site at the next opportunity, around 15:00 UTC June 4. No word yet on what they saw -- stay tuned!

http://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.p...amp;mission=hst

As of this writing, no dark impact site has been detected with telescopes of any aperture, including the Gemini North telescope.

[Bill Harris]

Interesting that no high-atmospheric signs have been observed soon after the "impact". Whereas a comet (a gravelly, low-cohesion body) disintegrates high in the atmosphere, making a shotgun-style debris pattern over a large, high-altitude area, a more cohesive rocky body behaves like a rifle bullet and punches through the upper cloud deck(s) and disintegrates at a lower level. Think of it as a small entrance wound-large exit wound. I wonder if we'll see some changesin that belt in the next few weeks as the disruption diffuses upward?

--Bill

[ElkGroveDan]

It's all about mass, Bill. I'd rather have a small hammer dropped on my foot than 16 tons of feathers.

[Floyd]

This story has almost dropped from view except Leigh Fletcher's tweet: "Almost there with our study of the #Jupiter impact of 2010 - Hubble has taken some images, waiting with baited breath to see what's there..."
What happend on the infrared observations? Any detection of heat even if no black scar?
Any news Emily? Astro0? Jason?

[Astro0]

Floyd, what makes you think that we have any inside information? Occasionally we get some first hand news and can pass it on, but these things just don't happen overnight. Remember it took about 6 months for the Hubble report to come out on the 2009 impact.

If there's any news to be had, then it'll come out in due time.
You may get a heads up through UMSF or not ... Stay tuned, stay patient.

[elakdawalla]

Astro0's right. I certainly don't have any inside information, just lots of RSS feeds and blogs I read and mailing lists I subscribe to. Oh, and there's this fabulous online forum where lots of other people who read lots of RSS feeds and random blogs in multiple languages post notes about interesting news...

[Phil Stooke]

I wish I knew about that one.

Phil