[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

Very interesting observation of a dark mark on Jupiter... it's starting to ripple out across Twitter...

http://www.irishastronomy.org/cms/forum?fu...;id=79644#79647

More info: http://www.acquerra.com.au/astro/ObsReport...ter-impact.html

[Floyd]

JPL new release In part:

Scientists have found evidence that another object has bombarded Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the first impacts by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

Following up on a tip by an amateur astronomer that a new dark "scar" had suddenly appeared on Jupiter, this morning between 3 and 9 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. and noon EDT) scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, gathered evidence indicating an impact.

New infrared images show the likely impact point was near the south polar region, with a visibly dark "scar" and bright upwelling particles in the upper atmosphere detected in near-infrared wavelengths, and a warming of the upper troposphere with possible extra emission from ammonia gas detected at mid-infrared wavelengths.

"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. We couldn't have planned it better," said Glenn Orton, a scientist at JPL.

Orton and his team of astronomers kicked into gear early in the morning and haven't stopped tracking the planet. They are downloading data now and are working to get additional observing time on this and other telescopes.

Really tacky JPL that you couldn't mention Anthony Wesley by name.

[Edit] JPL corrected their release to name Antony Wesley.

[ugordan]

It would have been nice if they actually mentioned Anthony Wesley's name in the release. I can already see the media picking this up as a NASA discovery.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

It would have been nice if they actually mentioned Anthony Wesley's name in the release. I can already see the media picking this up as a NASA discovery.

Yeh that's the first thing I thought about when reading the press release, a bit naughty really.

[ugordan]

Someone should email them about that, to be honest. Why is it a postdoc student is worthy of mentioning and even eligible for a comment and the original discoverer (whom Spaceweather.com labeled as "veteran Jupiter observer") isn't?

I understand this is JPL's own observation, but they were working off of another discovery. Isn't it customary to reference the original author/observer then? As it stands, this wouldn't be too far from a scoop, media-wise.