Huge Flash of Light in Jupiter

Another interesting and mysterious event has happened in Jupiter! (On June 3 to be precise). There was a flash of light so bright that it was detected even though it occurred during the Jovian day and even though it was initially seen through an amateur’s telescope, i.e., not from space, or from an observatory.

It has really surprised me that another significant event has occurred in that planet less than a month from the disappearance of one of its stripes. (See my previous post “Jupiter Loses a Stripe and NASA is Mystified”). Another interesting fact is that this event was observed first by Anthony Wesley, an amateur from Broken Hill, Australia (although I’m not so sure that should be the qualifier for someone so dedicated to Jupiter and with so many discoveries as he has). Thanks to him, the scientific community has seen and verified his observation. For me, the most surprising fact is that the scientists cannot explain completely what is behind these events. This should be such an inspiration to current or aspiring astronomers, as there is still so much to discover and learn about our own solar system!

Going back to the fireball or flash, the most likely cause for this phenomenon is supposed to be an impact by a comet or asteroid. The strange thing about it, however, is that it did not leave behind any traces of the debris that would be expected from such an impact. For example, when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 0 crashed against Jupiter in July, 1994, it left very visible marks afterwards for all to see. As Dr. Glenn Orton from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said: "We've seen things hit Jupiter before, and the flash of impact has always been followed by some kind of debris.". So the question is: where is the debris from the impact, if indeed it was an impact? For the complete description of this event, just go to the NASA page titled: “Jupiter Impact: Mystery of the Missing Debris”. Since a picture is worth many words, the following images show the actual event:

Composite images prepared by Anthony Wesley

June 3, 2010 - Broken Hill, Australia

Last, but not least, another lesson for Earth is that the predictions previously made re: the rarity of these impacts have to be seriously revised. It was thought that the chance of seeing an impact on Jupiter would be once every century (this was thought as recently as 1994). However, the verified observations made by just one person, Anthony Wesley, in the last 12 months show that this has happened twice already. As the head of NASA’s Near-Earth Object program of JPL, Dr. Don Yeomans, said: “It's time to revise our impact models [particularly for small impactors]”.

(The “Impact on Jupiter, June 3 2010” web page is the source to Mr. Wesley’s images, as well as two videos of the event – one of 9 seconds and the other one lasting 24 secs.).

Jupiter Loses a Stripe and NASA is Mystified

The headline from an article published today by NASA is surprising enough: "Big Mystery: Jupiter Loses a Stripe". So after going to the source to verify it, I can say that it appears legitimate. The news item in question talks about the unexplained disappearance of one of Jupiter's two main cloud belts. My first surprise after reading about this event is that this pheomenon is not yet fully understood by NASA. After all these years that Jupiter has been studied and observed by astronomers, I thought they could explain this type of events more easily. As Shakespeare said through Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy".

But, instead of trying to describe this event in words, it will be much better to show the evidence:

Photos taken by Australian astrophotographer Anthony Wesley

One of the first things that came to my mind when I read this article and saw the photo above was one of the last scenes of the movie "2010: The Year We Make Contact" (in particular the one where Jupiter starts to change and the astronauts are desperately trying to escape its orbit before it is too late). Since I saw that movie (and "2001: A Space Odyseey"), any news about Jupiter sounds interesting to me. Especially if there are any visible changes through our great distance apart!

This event also reminded me of another news item I follwed way back in July 1994, when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 had a collision with Jupiter, which was recorded in a series of spectacular photos taken by the Hubble telescope. That was the first time that an extraterrestrial collision of objects in our solar system was observed and recorded directly. The next picture shows the mark left by that impact on the mighty planet (the mark seen near the top, a bit left of the centre of the image)

Hubble Space Telescope Jupiter Imaging Team

And the following image shows the series of impact sites on Jupiter when they occured as seen through an infrared image taken by the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain on July 25, 1994. (NASA has a very good compilation of Images from Comet (SL-9) Collision with Jupiter, the one below is only one of those).

In total, there have been two major "significant" events, observable from Earth, in Jupiter, in the last 16 years. Who knows what else, and how much more is happening in our solar system that we do not know?