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A new impact in Jupiter

Noobton

By Noobton
in Science & Spaceflight

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Shpaget

Shpaget

Posted
Posted

Well, it's not really significant, is it?

It's a huge deal for the amateur that happened to have his scope pointed in the right direction and the camera rolling, but the video of the impact is of little scientific value and we know that Jupiter gets hit a lot anyway. This is just another rock, among uncountably many others that collided with something.

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Exploro

Exploro

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Well, it's not really significant, is it?

It's a huge deal for the amateur that happened to have his scope pointed in the right direction and the camera rolling, but the video of the impact is of little scientific value and we know that Jupiter gets hit a lot anyway. This is just another rock, among uncountably many others that collided with something.

Granted that the intention of this lucky astronomer was not to catch an impact upon Jupiter. But intentional observations of impact events would not be insignificant.

It was the observations of the immediate aftermath of the Shoemaker Levy 9 impact events of July 1995 that we got data on the chemicals the comet impacts threw out into the Jovian atmosphere. According to a Space.com article by Elizabeth Howell the HST detected Sulfurous compounds and Ammonia. These observations provided information on the chemical composition of the Jovian atmosphere; something that was still not well understood at the time (and perhaps still an area of significant interest today). In fact the wiki page on the impact event states some of the Sulfur compounds had not been identified as constituents of Jupiter's atmosphere until after the impact plumes were examined.

Edited by Exploro
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Shpaget

Shpaget

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Posted

Shoemaker Levy was not only significantly larger, it was also a predicted impact, meaning many different (and large) observatories could prepare themselves and record the event.

This was a small rock that was unexpected and the low resolution of the video doesn't offer much data.

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Exploro

Exploro

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Sadly that probably won't be long.

8 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Shoemaker Levy was not only significantly larger, it was also a predicted impact, meaning many different (and large) observatories could prepare themselves and record the event.

This was a small rock that was unexpected and the low resolution of the video doesn't offer much data.

Interestingly only one platform was in the right position to make optical observations of the impact events as they occurred. The impacts occurred on Jupiter's farside. Earth based telescopes and the HST were thus unable to see the impacts take place; seeing only the impact plumes and the resulting pockmarks. Ulysses spacecraft was in the right place; but apparently it's studies focused on gathering data of radio emissions during the comet fragments collisions with the Gas Giant. Only Galileo; enroute to Jupiter, was in the right place to image some of the fragments collisions as they occurred.

Edited by Exploro
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kerbiloid

kerbiloid

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Posted

And maybe smashed remains of something large (and rich with ammonia) are resting under the Jupiter upper atmosphere and smoking red?

That would be an answer why the Great Red Spot is too stable. Because in this case not the Spot is stable, but a heap of ammonia mud gives the red color to atmospheric whirls over its head.

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Rdivine

Rdivine

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On 3/30/2016 at 3:14 PM, RainDreamer said:

How many of you are betting on people calling it "an UFO entering secret alien jupiter base" in the next 24h?

I'm placing my car and my house on it. (I'm gonna be rich)

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KerikBalm

KerikBalm

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On 3/30/2016 at 3:52 PM, kerbiloid said:

And maybe smashed remains of something large (and rich with ammonia) are resting under the Jupiter upper atmosphere and smoking red?

That would be an answer why the Great Red Spot is too stable. Because in this case not the Spot is stable, but a heap of ammonia mud gives the red color to atmospheric whirls over its head.

No... because there's no mud on Jupiter, because there's no solid surface... it just gets denser and denser until it becomes a supercritical fluid. Its core is way way way deep.

The spot is more than just a red color, it is a storm with clear circulation patters, that moves and changes over time.

Also... its freaking huge... something of that size slamming into jupiter would have been catastropphic, and would be vaporized, much would be ejected, and what isn't would be very well mixed by the energy of an impact which is orders of magnitude more than the impact energy of meteors that encounter the earth, due to jupiters extreme mass.

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kerbiloid

kerbiloid

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

No... because there's no mud on Jupiter, because there's no solid surface... it just gets denser and denser until it becomes a supercritical fluid. Its core is way way way deep.

The spot is more than just a red color, it is a storm with clear circulation patters, that moves and changes over time.

Also... its freaking huge... something of that size slamming into jupiter would have been catastropphic, and would be vaporized, much would be ejected, and what isn't would be very well mixed by the energy of an impact which is orders of magnitude more than the impact energy of meteors that encounter the earth, due to jupiters extreme mass.

Jupiter has no solid surface does not mean it is an ideal sphere.
Under its atmosphere it's a ball of hydrogen mess polluted with other substances. Imagine an thawed ice-cream ball with a cherry juice drop on its side.

A storm with clear circulation patterns you can see, say, in a river where a big stone disturbs the water flow.
So, a stable storm obviously can be caused by some inclusion which makes the atmospheric turbulence over its head.

Freaking huge. Yes, its diameter is larger than a diameter of the Earth. But.
1. A whirlpool over an underwater stone is definitely larger than the stone itself.
2. it's huge in horizontal directions. But scrape it off and make a ball, and it would be less than Mars.

Drop a Titan onto/into the Jupiter and you will get a huge smashed spot ingraned into the thick hydrogen ice-cream, rich with nitrogen/ammonia and maybe sulfur, causing a stable whirlpool and giving it the yellow-brown color.

 

 

Edited by kerbiloid
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insert_name

insert_name

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, fredinno said:

You won. I think?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3460903/Conspiracy-theorists-claim-spotted-interstellar-mother-ship-near-Jupiter-s-moon-Europa.html

Eh, close enough.

ah yes the daily mail, journalism at its finest. I mean seriously they use some conspiracy channel as a source, and I thought the whole kerbal joke pic was bad

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kurja

kurja

Posted
Posted
On 31.3.2016 at 0:17 AM, insert_name said:

ah yes the daily mail, journalism at its finest. I mean seriously they use some conspiracy channel as a source, and I thought the whole kerbal joke pic was bad

Also, what the heck is a "7D-300mm telescopic lens"??

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kiwi1960

kiwi1960

Posted
Posted (edited)

Alien fleet has launched.... the invasion has begun...

Why? They want KSP 1.1 for themselves. :)

 

11 hours ago, kurja said:

Also, what the heck is a "7D-300mm telescopic lens"??

Ask any woman..... its a massive bra.... bigger than a 6D cup anyhow.... :)

Edited by kiwi1960
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