Science
Related: About this forumExplosion on Jupiter
Apparently, something hit Jupiter during the early hours of Sept. 10th (11:35 UT), igniting a ferocious fireball in the giant planet's cloudtops. Amateur astronomer Dan Peterson Racine, Wisconsin, saw it first through his Meade 12" LX200 telescope. "It was a bright white flash that lasted only 1.5 - 2 seconds," he reports. Another amateur astronomer, George Hall of Dallas, Texas, was video-recording Jupiter at the time, and he confirmed the fireball with this video screenshot:
More-
http://spaceweather.com/
WCGreen
(45,558 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)They have their telescopes pointed into the heavens for hours every night possible. I have a great 250 mm Newtonian reflector with digital setting circles and a computer which puts the scope dead nuts on the target. I have to push it by hand, but I am practiced.
I used to have a great triplet refractor on a wonderful Losmandy G-11 mount. Unfortunately I had to sell it to live through a cold winter. That was a wonder of a combo. I only wish I had a digital camera to complete the ensemble.
I haven't had my scope out in some time. Shame on me.
tridim
(45,358 posts)My only scope is a JCPenny Meade I got for xmas in the 1980;s.
TrogL
(32,822 posts)I'd like to be able to have the rings of Saturn 1.2 fill the eyepiece. Don't need computer control but I'd think about a motor. Equatorial mount, of course.
xxqqqzme
(14,887 posts)The solar activity they publish is amazing.
absyntheminded
(216 posts)..the size of earth, thanks for taking another one for the team Jupiter!
Planetary comparisons at link.
http://www.saintjoe.edu/~dept14/environment/rogero/core5/celestial_compare.html
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Scuba
Aha, there is where the ball went
Diclotican
ChazInAz
(2,569 posts)All those gas giants in our outer solar system and our huge moon help to scoop up the planet-killer asteroids and comets before they get to us. Of course, there IS the occasional Chckxalub-sized thing that gets through. Seen any dinosaurs, lately?
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)And if another K/T event occurs you can say good-bye to humanity, because it would be a disaster that would dwarf even the Toba eruption, let alone global warming(both of which were, and are bad, in of themselves), or WWIII.
Let's just hope that Apophis doesn't hit in 2029, eh?
tclambert
(11,087 posts)(Okay, they didn't really say that. But somebody thought it, you know they did.)
defacto7
(13,485 posts)What a kick if he got that. Pause... I am a little sceptical though. I watched the video and it looks wrong to me. The pixelization is just not right for the kind of event. The outflow from the object is not what I would expect nor the lighting not the timing. There are enhanced features that don't bleed right from the event. It doesn't mean it's a fake... yet... but it's not quite right.
If there are other corroborating pictures form other sources, I'll believe it. Until then, I'll be sceptical. Most of the astronomical community will want that as well.
LunaSea
(2,894 posts)looking for a scar.
You can add yours to the search-
http://www.space.com/17546-jupiter-impact-slooh-webcast-tonight.html
defacto7
(13,485 posts)There are a couple of possibilities that I see. This is a projectile of relatively light consistency at a very high speed hitting at an almost 90 degree angle making an explosion on the outer atmosphere. I would imagine it would not make much of a mark because it seems to spread out at a very high speed from the impact and I mean possibly 300,000 MPH. Just from this video is seems to me the projected material is going at about the diameter of the earth per second. It's that speed that gets me. The pixelization issue I suppose could simply be his camera. Another more bizarre possibility would be that it's a tiny piece of antimatter at immense speed exploding on the outer atmosphere. In that case, there would be a lot of scientists watching for particles passing earth for confirmation.
I'm such a sceptic... I'm still not convinced. We'll see. I'd be glad to be wrong.
LunaSea
(2,894 posts)Lots of variables to consider. Let's just wait and see.
Jupiter Impact - a small comet smashes through the clouds of Jupiter, for "Comet" by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
Awesome painting by Don Dixon.
http://cosmographica.com/dixonart/pages/gallery_10
defacto7
(13,485 posts)There's a science group? Whoa, I'd better get over there!
defacto7
(13,485 posts)By Astronomy Magazine, and Astronomy Now in GB. The only sightings being reported are by the same 2 sources.
Both those mags are reputable but I am not seeing anything from scientific sources yet.
Hmmm.... maybe...
grok
(550 posts)Last edited Tue Sep 11, 2012, 06:37 PM - Edit history (1)
gravitationally of course. So us small business people can do what we want without scrutiny.
Small is the way to go! Unfortunately can't hire people that way...
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)A singularly appropriate phrase it proved. Yet the next day there was nothing of this in the papers except a little note in the Daily Telegraph, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of the eruption at all had I not met Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer, at Ottershaw. He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a scrutiny of the red planet.
In spite of all that has happened since, I still remember that vigil very distinctly: the black and silent observatory, the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the steady ticking of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in the roof--an oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it. Ogilvy moved about, invisible but audible. Looking through the telescope, one saw a circle of deep blue and the little round planet swimming in the field. It seemed such a little thing, so bright and small and still, faintly marked with transverse stripes, and slightly flattened from the perfect round. But so little it was, so silvery warm--a pin's-head of light! It was as if it quivered, but really this was the telescope vibrating with the activity of the clockwork that kept the planet in view.
As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller and to advance and recede, but that was simply that my eye was tired. Forty millions of miles it was from us--more than forty millions of miles of void. Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims. Near it in the field, I remember, were three faint points of light, three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know how that blackness looks on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope it seems far profounder. And invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly and steadily towards me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer every minute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were sending us, the Thing that was to bring so much struggle and calamity and death to the earth. I never dreamed of it then as I watched; no one on earth dreamed of that unerring missile.
That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant planet. I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge, the slightest projection of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight; and at that I told Ogilvy and he took my place. The night was warm and I was thirsty, and I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the darkness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while Ogilvy exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us.
That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth from Mars, just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first one. I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness, with patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I wished I had a light to smoke by, little suspecting the meaning of the minute gleam I had seen and all that it would presently bring me. Ogilvy watched till one, and then gave it up; and we lit the lantern and walked over to his house. Down below in the darkness were Ottershaw and Chertsey and all their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace.
He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars, and scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were signalling us. His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a heavy shower upon the planet, or that a huge volcanic explosion was in progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets.
"The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one," he said.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/warworlds/b1c1.html
nikto
(3,284 posts)It's huge gravitational field attracts many of the foreign bodies (comets, asteroids)
that stray into our solar system.
In this way, it acts as a sort of "shield".
But, ofcourse, not for every foreign object.
LunaSea
(2,894 posts)Just sayin'...
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)siligut
(12,272 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)Just wonderin' haven't seen anything. Haven't really looked either, I was counting you people to give me the scoop.
LunaSea
(2,894 posts)Nothin in the NIR-
http://cosmicdiary.org/fmarchis/2012/09/14/no-detection-of-scar-on-jupiter-in-the-nir/
Nothin in the visible-
http://exosky.net/exosky/?p=1911
defacto7
(13,485 posts)I think I'll raise my hoax hypotheses to a 3sigma probability...
But I'm reticent. Reticent I say!
defacto7
(13,485 posts)Although I haven't read enough to know if they are just accepting the photos that were submitted or if they have professional observations as well. It's a long time in coming.