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Subscribe to RSSA photograph of Jupiter captured a flash on the surface of the massive planet, which is believed to be the impact of a comet or asteroid. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
Astronomers are abuzz over sightings of a flash on Jupiter — which suggests that the giant planet has taken another bullet for the solar system team.
Monday's report follows Jovian impacts in 2009 and 2010. As in those earlier cases, the call has gone out to look for any visible scars on Jupiter's cloud tops. That would be a sure sign that an asteroid or comet was drawn in by the planet's gravitational pull, potentially saving us from a cosmic collision threat.
"It's kind of a scary proposition to see how often Jupiter gets hit," said George Hall, an amateur astronomer from Dallas who captured the flash on video this morning.
Hall didn't actually see the hit when it happened. Early Monday morning, he brought out his 12-inch Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with the Point Grey Flea3 video camera attached, just to capture imagery for a composite picture of Jupiter. "Jupiter happens to be ideally positioned at about 6 o'clock in the morning," he explained. "It's right overhead."
That also just happened to be the time when another amateur astronomer from Oregon, Dan Petersen, made a visual observation of the flash. Peterson didn't capture an image of the flare, which lasted only a couple of seconds, but he did send his sighting report to other astronomers.
"I decided to just observe on this particular morning," he said in an email to Philippine amateur astronomer Christopher Go. "Had I been imaging I probably would have missed it while playing with webcam settings and focusing."
Go relayed Peterson's report to the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers' Jupiter forum, which set the place buzzing. Hall noticed the online hubbub and went back to review the video file on his computer. "I never would have looked" if it weren't for Petersen's report, Hall told me. The time stamp on Hall's video matched up with Petersen's observations — 6:35 a.m. CT, which is 7:35 a.m. ET or 11:35 GMT.
Hall reported his find, and shared in the accolades from fellow amateurs.
Universe Today's Nancy Atkinson quotes amateur astronomers as saying that the impact area should come back into view starting at about 1 a.m. ET Tuesday.
Jupiter impacts are of great interest to astronomers, amateur and professional, because they're part of the orbital billiards game that has shaped our solar system. In some cases, the cosmic interloper is destroyed before it has any visible effect on Jupiter's cloud tops. In weightier cases, the object breaks up and leaves black marks on the planet's atmosphere. The case of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994 is the most notable in recent memory.
Beyond the planetary science, there's the "phew" factor: Astronomers suspect that giant Jupiter's gravitational pull serves as a cosmic shield, sweeping up incoming objects that would have a deadlier effect if they were to slam into our planet. Some scientists say that without Jupiter, life on Earth wouldn't have had much of a chance.
How big was the object that caused Monday's flash? Stay tuned: We may get a better fix on that once astronomers get a follow-up look. But Hall probably won't be among the legions keeping watch on Tuesday morning. He's lost enough sleep over the past couple of nights.
"I'm almost 70 years old," he told me, "and it takes a lot out of me to get up at 4:30 or 5."
Update for 1:25 p.m. ET Sept. 11: So far, observers have seen no conclusive sign of a scar left behind on Jupiter by the flash, going by the chatter on the ALPO Jupiter forum and the Cloudy Nights website.
Update for 3:15 p.m. ET Sept. 11: Hall has posted a must-see video of the flash on Flickr. But don't bother popping the popcorn: The video clip is just four seconds long.
More cosmic collisions:
- 2009: Comet may have hit Jupiter
- 2009: See Jupiter's Great Black Spot
- 2010: Something hit Jupiter ... again!
- 2010: What whacked Jupiter? A meteor
- 2010: Yet another news flash from Jupiter
- 2011: Comet impacts scar rings of Jupiter and Saturn
Tip o' the Log to Universe Today.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Re: update. So there are no signs of scar. Possibly it's lightning.
Wow! How immense would that lightning have to be?
I still think it was a Jovian kid with a laser pointer...
Actually, it is likely that outer gas giants are foes, not friends:
" "When George Wetherill did his work back in 1994, the computers available to him were much more limited than what we have today," says Horner, who originally comes from the UK. "The lack of computing power meant that he had to make some fairly big approximations and simplifications. His was a ground-breaking study but at the same time it was one that was limited by what he had available."
Horner and and Jones decided to run the experiment again but this time with twenty-first century computing power, hooking up tens of computers in parallel at the Open University. Their simulations agreed that Jupiter is a factor in protecting Earth from long period comets, but how would it fare with the new populations of short period comets and near Earth asteroids? Described in a series of papers published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, the duo found their answer to be at odds with conventional theory."
"The simulations showed that the number of asteroid impacts on Earth peaks when there is a planet in Jupiter's orbit that has a mass one-fifth that of Jupiter's mass, whereas just over half the peak rate of impacts occur when there is a planet with a mass equal to Jupiter. The impact rate falls off again at the lower extreme, when Jupiter's mass becomes too low to be able to nudge any asteroids with its gravity."
"Jupiter's role seems confused. It definitely sends asteroids and comets our way and, in any given year, more than 90 percent of all objects crossing Earth's orbit are asteroids, so the protection Jupiter provides us from long period comets, or by eventually removing short period comets, is of lesser importance. Hence Jupiter is not the friend that it has been perceived to be."
My interest here is the astrobiology implications. Whether impacts are good or bad for abiogenesis or later habitability is one set of questions. But another question is that the atrocious "Rare Earth" hypothesis relies on combining specious factors (here: Jupiter lower impact rates, impacts are bad) in such a way that they have all been shown to be irrelevant or questionable or outright erroneous. This is one of the latter cases.
A+1 post Torbjorn (as usual!) - I have but one quibble with your quote:
Jupiter has, historically and currently, either swallowed cosmic detritus (very good for us), flung it into the inner Solar System (potentially very bad), or ejected it to the outer Solar System (leaning toward goodness, depending on the nature of the new orbit). All else being equal, isn't the removal of potential impactors by either Jupiter snacking, or Jupiter banishing this material to the Outer Limits, all in all a net plus?
"Is it a hit?"
Negative, it didn't go in. It just impacted on the surface.