Meteorite Collision On Jupiter So Big, It Was Visible From Earth

An amateur astronomer from Texas, Ethan Chappel looking for Perseid meteors at night captured the sight of a lifetime with his Celestron 8 telescope. Well, he recorded the spectacular view of a bright flash on Jupiter's surface. This comes soon after NASA's Juno spacecraft captured the gas giant in stunning detail.

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Well, the unexpected flash on the surface of the biggest planet in the solar system has excited astronomers and is said to be a possibility of an impact caused by a meteor.

The impact recorded on the night of August 7 is yet to be confirmed by a second observer but it appears to be a crash of a gigantic asteroid into Jupiter. The brief flash spotted at the South Equatorial Belt (SEB) of the planet fades away quickly. It expands into a small dot before fading away, which is a sign of an impact, as suggested by previous events centered around Jupiter.

SL9 Impact On Jupiter

Astronomer Dr. Heidi B. Hammel took to Twitter to highlight the second impact recorded on Jupiter. In the tweet below, she notes that the impact hasn't left any dark debris as in the case of SL9 in 1994. SL9 is Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, an impact on Jupiter, which is famous in the world of astronomy. Hammel led the team that studied the impact using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and how the gaseous atmosphere of the planet responded to it.

Another impact on Jupiter today (2019-08-07 at 04:07 UTC)! A bolide (meteor) and not likely to leave dark debris like SL9 did 25 years ago. Congrats to Ethan Chappel (@ChappelAstro) on this discovery and H/T to Damian Peach (@peachastro) for the report https://t.co/lj38ncBZuI

— Dr Heidi B. Hammel (@hbhammel) August 7, 2019

Interestingly, it was found that the size of the flash is almost that of Earth. It was also said that the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, which is said to be a never-ending gaseous storm, can fit nearly three Earths in it. However, not all impacts on Jupiter are of the size of the Earth.

Notably, Sky and Telescope's Bob King notes that if this is confirmed, then it will the seventh recorded impact of Jupiter after SL9 and the first one in two years. There could be several impacts on the big gas planets that have gone unnoticed as well.