Science News Review

Jupiter Takes Another Hit

Jul 27 at 4:04pm by Aileen

Last week an amateur astronomer in Australia named Anthony Wesley discovered a ‘hole’ very nearly the size of Earth in the banded atmosphere of Jupiter, indicating that the largest of our solar system’s planets had once again been hit by a cosmic billiard ball of some kind. Space Daily reports that The Hubble Space Telescope was re-tasked after recent calibration to take a look at the expanding hole.

The sky-watchers don’t know if the billiard ball in question was an asteroid or a comet, as apparently no one saw it coming. The telescopes of both amateur and professional astronomers have been trained on the hole. They estimate the object was the size of several football fields, and the force of the explosion caused when it entered the atmosphere was thousands of times more powerful than whatever exploded over Tunguska in Siberia in 1908. This initiates what astronomers call “shock chemistry,” where rare and unexpected chemical reactions occur. Some of these can be measured from earth-based telescopes.

So if you happen to have a good-sized telescope in the attic or garage put away when you or your kids grew up, now is a great time to get it out, find a nice, dark viewing area, and take a look!