New Impact on Jupiter July 21, 2009Posted by jcconwell in
Asteroid, Astronomy, planets. Tags: Asteroid, Jupiter, Solar
System Taken from the article by Nancy Atkinson at Universe
Today Amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley from Canberra, Australia
captured an image of Jupiter on July 19 showing a possible new
impact site. Anthony’s image shows a new dark spot in the South
Polar Region of Jupiter, at approximately 216° longitude in
System 2. It looks very similar to the impact marks made on
Jupiter when comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into the gas giant
in 1994. (But read the Bad Astronomer’s post that the black spot
could also be weather.) UPDATE (7/20): It has been confirmed
this is an impact on Jupiter. Mike Salway shared the news Glenn
Orton from JPL has imaged the Jupiter black spot with the NASA
Infrared Telescope and he has confirmed it’s an impact.