By Jupiter!
An unseen comet or possibly an icy asteroid apparently crashed into Jupiter’s atmosphere near the giant planet’s south pole sometime during the last few days, creating a “gargantuan” blemish easily visible from Earth.
The presumed impact, discovered by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley July 19 and confirmed by NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, came almost 15 years to the day after multiple fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter in 1994.
An impact “scar” on Jupiter (near the south pole at the top of the image), as photographed by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley July 19.
(Credit: Anthony Wesley)
“We’re not sure how large this fragment could have been,” Leigh Fletcher, a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told CNET.
“But it certainly had the energy and the momentum that was sizable enough that when it hit the upper atmospheric layers of Jupiter, it created a kind of splash of material that lofted aerosols and gases and various other particulates to really high altitudes.”
The scar left in Jupiter’s atmosphere is roughly the size of an atmospheric feature known as the “little red spot,” a long-lasting storm nearly the size of Earth.
