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On the evening of September 13, something struck Jupiter, producing an explosion and flash of light visible even to amateur astronomers equipped with standard telescopes. Now the hunt is on to find out what the impactor could have been.
The collision was first reported by Brazilian amateur astronomer José Luis Pereira, and confirmed a day later by Harald Paleske of Langendorf, Germany. Luckily, Paleske had filmed Io’s shadow transit when the impact appeared as a two-second flash:
Pereira immediately alerted the astronomical community and the Twilight Bark echoed around the world via forums, social media and the DeTeCt software / project. It turned out that the impact had also been detected by an organization of French amateur astronomers with the Société Lorraine d’Astronomie (SLA) through a 62 cm telescope. Another high altitude French observatory in Saint-Véran was also capturing the transit of Io’s shadow when it picked up the flash. Meanwhile, Paleske determined that the impact had occurred at Jovian latitude 106.9 ° (CM1), longitude + 3.8 °, and timed it at 22:39:27 UTC on the 13th. September.
Reports are pouring in with still images and videos. The SLA sent its data to Marc Delcroix, Senior Scientist at the Media Information Laboratory at NTT Communication Science Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, who manages the DeTeCt software / project. Delcroix, in turn, has gathered and presented evidence from across the amateur and professional astronomical community in a continuous summary of observations.
We don’t know what it was, but there are clues. According to Delcroix, the collaborators did not find any traces of the impact in the methane absorption band, which forces the diameter of the object to about twenty meters: bigger than a school bus, smaller than ‘a blue whale. If it had been bigger, it would have triggered more turbulence in the atmosphere, and maybe even a splash of the strange pseudosurface of Jupiter.
A strong candidate for the identity of this impactor is something like Shoemaker-Levy 9. This impactor is believed to be a holdover from something larger, possibly a comet or asteroid that shattered after being captured by the gravity of Jupiter. Additionally, it is possibly the brightest impact flash since SL-9, indicating that it is an object of considerable mass. Delcroix said: “The amount of energy released, the dynamics of impact, the physical characteristics of the body will be investigated by careful scientific study of the event light curves derived from amateur videos.”
Anyone who captured images or video of the event is invited to contact Delcroix, whose contact details are provided at the end of his summary of observations. This impact is being documented by the DeTeCt project, and even mere mortals who observe planets for fun with backyard telescopes are enthusiastically invited to participate.
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