Amateur astronomers spot a fireball on Jupiter

Earlier this week, amateur astronomers the whole world has independently seen something big crashing into Jupiter.

The amount of space debris that must regularly fall on Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, must be incredibly huge. We can’t see all of these impacts, like the vast majority are very small, but every now and then something big hits this gas giant, creating an impact flash that is visible to observers on the ground.

Such an event seems occurred on September 13 at approximately 10:39 p.m. UTC.

German astronomer Harald Paleske was one of the many amateur astronomers who noticed a sudden surge on Jovian cloud tops, like Spaceweather reports. The transientThe flash, spotted along Jupiter’s equatorial regions, “could only be an impact,” he said. Paleske was observing Jupiter’s moon Io casting its shadow on the gas giant when he made the detection, according to at EarthSky.

The fireball lasted a good two seconds. Spaceweather suspects offending object was either an asteroid or a comet and that it was approximately 328 feet (100 meters) in diameter. Paleske has ruled out passing objects like planes and satellites as disrupting his line of sight, according to Spaceweather.

Amateur astronomer José Luis Pereira from Brazil observed the same thing at the same time. (His video, above, is on loop for easy viewing.) Like sky and telescope reports, Pereira used specialized astronomical software, called Detect, to locate the fireball. This program, developed by Marc Delcroix, traverses the incoming astronomical data, spitting out an alert whenever an abnormal, or transient, observation is detected. The alert in this case assigned a high probability that the eruption was caused by a collision. Pereira confirmed the data with Delcroix.

That some sort of object struck Jupiter now seems clear, as Delcroix has received similar reports from at least seven astronomers: one from Brazil, two from Germany, three from France and one from Italy, reports Sky and telescope.

It is known that large objects strike Jupiter from time to time, the previous occurrence being in 2019. Famous, comet fragments from Shoemaker-Levy 9 flew into the gas giant in 1994, creating a temporary scar in the upper atmosphere. At least eight impact flashes have been recorded on Jupiter in the past 27 years, according to Sky and telescope.

Astronomers are urged to watch Jupiter to see if the recent collision has left a mark as well.

Following: Holy shit, the Moon was hit by a meteorite during the “Super Wolf Blood Moon” eclipse.