# This is Awesome. (Astronomer Catches Asteroid Impact on Jupiter) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 13, 2012, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594 "2012-09-13T13:54:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/1 "2012-09-13T13:54:29Z")
> **[Jupiter Has Taken a Massive Meteor Hit (So Earth Didn't Have To)](https://gizmodo.com/jupiter-has-taken-a-massive-meteor-hit-so-earth-didnt-5942503)** > > On Monday, Jupiter took a massive hit from a meteor, which was spotted by amateur astronomers based in the US—and if previous evidence is anything to go by, it could have saved Earth from a massive collision in the process. I’ve always been impressed by the notion that astronomy is one of the few (only?) areas of science where new discoveries are often attributed to amateurs. By the way, how do you pronounce “gizmodo”? I always say “GIZZ-moe-doe” in my head. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/2 "2012-09-13T14:31:19Z")
I am imagining him with a very, _very_ big mitt. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/3 "2012-09-13T15:42:33Z")
Nice find thanks. Must have been a massive explosion to show up. Are there any high-res pictures of the aftermath anywhere? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/4 "2012-09-13T15:48:27Z")
For such a big explosion it sure doesn’t last long. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/5 "2012-09-13T15:57:21Z")
Well, explosions don’t, by definition. There would be a large fireball left behind, but that camera was only sensitive enough to capture the initial flash. If Hubble takes a look, it might see a scar, similar to the one from the [2009 impact](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hs-2009-23-crop.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/6 "2012-09-13T16:32:21Z")
Other than the OP missspelling splosion, thats pretty damn cool ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/7 "2012-09-13T16:52:57Z")
NBC’s Brian Williams had this story and said something that didn’t seem right; that Jupiter was 11 times bigger than Earth. I remembered from Shoemaker-Levy 9 that it was _much_ larger so I looked it up. From [here](http://www.universetoday.com/22710/jupiter-compared-to-earth/) it says: _“Mass…Jupiter has a mass of 1.8981 x 1027 kg. That is over 317 times the mass of Earth. Volume…Jupiter’s volume is1.43128 x 1015 km3. That is 1,321 times Earth’s volume. Surface area…The surface area of Jupiter is 6.1419 x 1010 km2. Earth is over 120 times smaller. Mean circumference…Jupiter has a mean circumference of of 4.39264 x 105 km, which is nearly 11 times larger than Earth’s. Density…Jupiter has a low density of 1.326 g/cm3, less than 25% of Earth’s.”_ Mean circumference then is what they referenced. But no matter how you look at it the point remains that Jupiter is so freakin’ huge that any object big enough to visibly impact it would be absolutely catastrophic were it to have come our way. Thanks, Jupiter, for the massive gravitational sweep. ---
**Author:** ![getitrite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@getitrite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/getitrite)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/8 "2012-09-13T16:54:46Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > Nice find thanks. Must have been a massive explosion to show up. Are there any high-res pictures of the aftermath anywhere? I use the site called [spaceweather.com](http://spaceweather.com) , and yes they have after pictures, and no there were no scars left, so it must have been a smaller asteroid. You can also get pictures of aurora and other out of this world stuff. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/9 "2012-09-13T18:14:20Z")
nice! ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/10 "2012-09-13T19:07:34Z")
> [@getitrite](#): > > I use the site called [spaceweather.com](http://spaceweather.com) , and yes they have after pictures, and no there were no scars left, so it must have been a smaller asteroid. You can also get pictures of aurora and other out of this world stuff. Thanks. I think what we’re seeing in that vid is the flash of the explosion, followed by it’s reflection off the surrounding clouds. The actual fireball would have been much smaller. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/11 "2012-09-13T19:30:31Z")
Here is my question - plese fight my ignorance… Jupiter is a gas giant, so what did the asteroid actually hit? Would the gaseous atmosphere cause it to explode (as seems the case), or would it have to hit something solid (the core of Jupiter)? And, since the Jovian atmosphere is a thick layer of gas, why would it leave a mark, or scar? Thx ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/12 "2012-09-13T20:12:32Z")
The impactor would have been travelling at a few kilometres per second. That’s a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. As it fell into Jupiter’s atmosphere, it was heated by ram pressure. Essentially, kinetic energy is converted into heat, until it simply blows up. It would have reached this point and exploded before travelling deeply into Jupiter’s atmosphere. For a point of comparison, the 1908 [Tunguska event](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event) was caused by an airburst of a meteroid or comet fragment roughly 100m across. The result was an explosion of several megatons, a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-awesome-astronomer-catches-asteroid-impact-on-jupiter/634594/13 "2012-09-20T01:22:04Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > [http://gizmodo.com/5942503/amateur-astronomer-spots-massive-explosion-on-jupiter](http://gizmodo.com/5942503/amateur-astronomer-spots-massive-explosion-on-jupiter) > > I’ve always been impressed by the notion that astronomy is one of the few (only?) areas of science where new discoveries are often attributed to amateurs. > > By the way, how do you pronounce “gizmodo”? I always say “GIZZ-moe-doe” in my head. Close. The accent is in the middle. gizz-MOE-doe. Like Quasimodo.