Jupiter Struck by Object, NASA Images Confirm

Jupiter Struck by Object, NASA Images Confirm

www.foxnews.com

PASADENA, California — A large comet or asteroid has slammed into Jupiter, creating an impact site the size of Earth, pictures by an Australian amateur astronomer show.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed the discovery using its large infrared telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, said computer programer Anthony Wesley, 44, who discovered the impact zone while stargazing at home.

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Billions of people on this planet and it's as if only one person was watching. How can NASA not know about this? When Shoemaker comet was discovered, we all had time to watch the impact as we were notified in advance. Yet something as large as Earth slams into Jupiter and if not for one amature astronomer, we would have all missed it. I find it hard with all the technology, telescopes, and space station that NASA would not have been aware of this. Something just isn't sitting right and maybe I'm wrong, but my intuition says that I am not. Do you believe this is the case, that NASA really knew nothing?

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reply to post by LunarLooney1


I'm not surprised the object wasn't detected in advance, the numbers just make it impossible to catalogue every possible object that might possibly impact another.

That said, I'm surprised its taken NASA so long to verify this.

The article says the impact size not object size was that of earth.
I recall the shoemaker objects also left impacts that were the size of the earth, however they were not large chunks. Some estimate a few hundred meters at max.
The fact that they disturbed the gas layer made the impact visible by telescope.

reply to post by robwerden


good point rob! So it may have been a small object, but the impact was obviously large and NASA didn't see it?

There is already an existing thread on this. www.abovetopsecret.com...

I think the showmaker event was found because it was a much larger object that later broke up. The tracking had been going on for some time.

I know we have scientific limits on resolution with our existing telescope technology. Even today we do not have a telescope strong enough to see the apollo hardware on the moon, and that is only 250k miles away.

reply to post by Erasurehead


You're right! ATS needs to fix the firehouse green light... I clearly got the green light on this and it's not the first time it's happend! Burn me up!

reply to post by LunarLooney1

good point rob! So it may have been a small object, but the impact was obviously large and NASA didn't see it?

The picture that was posted was taken by an INFRARED camera, not an optitcal camera. Furthermore, as the article states, the infrared-detected spot was only "visable" in the infrared for a short period of time.