Sunday, August 22, 2010

Jupiter Must Be a Big Target for Asteroids...

Because we are looking at another potential impact just two days ago on August 20th. This report comes from Junichi Watanabe of Japan using a fairly modest 6 inch telescope and a decent webcam.


So far, no one else has reported this impact and initial follow up observations reveal no impact scar on Jupiter. If it was a small impactor and burned up higher in the atmosphere, it is possible for there to be no impact scar (as was the case with the previous impact).

We still need a lot more data, but if we keep finding them at this rate, we might have to revise our expected impact rate upward a bit (at least for Jupiter!)

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

4 comments:

SER said...

I read the title to fast and thought it said, Jupiter must be a big target for assholes.

gezzzz, better put my glasses on

kkdither said...

LOL, SER! Can we ship them all there, can we, can we????

hale-bopp said...

There could be asshole asteroids, couldn't there?

Huck Finn said...

Man, can't you tell a war when you see one? How else can you explain all these impacts?