An apparent impact on Jupiter early Monday (Sept. 10) created a fireball on the planet so large and bright that amateur astronomers on Earth spotted the flash.

The surprising impact on Jupiter was first reported by amateur astronomer Dan Peterson of Racine, Wisc., who was observing the largest planet in our solar system when the event occurred, according to the website Spaceweather.com, which tracks space weather and night sky events.

"It was a bright flash that lasted only 1.5 – 2 seconds," Peterson told Spaceweather.com. Peterson used a Meade 12-inch LX200GPS telescope to observe the event, which occurred near the southern edge of Jupiter's northern equatorial belt of clouds.  

In a report posted on the Cloudy Nights forum, Peterson said it wasn't clear if the impact would leave a scar on Jupiter much like those seen in 1994, when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke into pieces and peppered the planet with debris, creating visible impact marks in Jovian cloud tops. It is also not yet known if the object to strike Jupiter was a small asteroid or comet.

"My best guess is that it was a small undetected comet that is now history, hopefully it will sign its name on Jupiter's cloud tops," Peterson wrote.

In Dallas, Texas, amateur astronomer George Hall read Peterson's initial report on an online Jupiter-observing forum.

"When I saw the post, I went back and examined the videos that I had collected this morning," Hall wrote on his night sky photography website on Monday.

Sure enough, Hall had captured a video of the Jupiter impact and reported that it occurred at 6:35 a.m. CDT (1335 GMT) on Sept. 10. He used a 12-inch LX200GPS telescope equipped with a 3x Televue Barlow and Point Grey Flea 3 camera.

"The popularity of modern digital imaging combined with the tenacity and hard work of dedicated planetary observers has paid off yet again with a visual report of a fireball event in Jupiter's atmosphere being reported visually and then being confirmed by stills from a movie sequence," astronomer and astrophotographer Pete Lawrence, a BBC night sky presented who runs the DigitalSky website, told SPACE.com in an email. "The fact that such events have now been reported before may be a catalyst for visual observers to keep watch for them."

This graphic of Jupiter by UK astronomer Pete Lawrence shows the location of the Jupiter impact region from Sept. 12, 2012, as seen through an inverting astronomical telescope. The impact site is located at longitude system II 335, latitude +12. CREDIT: Pete Lawrence/DigitalSky.org.uk

7 Comments

1. 1. PaulCox100 12:30 AM 9/13/12

   As soon as we heard the news, we pointed the telescopes at Jupiter for the following 48hrs. I've just finished a Jupiter time-lapse from last night (http://goo.gl/CNoiv) - absolutely no sign of any impact soot from Monday's comet or asteroid hit.

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2. 2. jtdwyer 10:01 AM 9/13/12

   Great catches by Peterson and Hall - and Jupiter!

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3. 3. jgrosay 05:26 PM 9/13/12

   An old Spanish proverb about timely events says: "It's like a stone falling in the eye of an apothecary"

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4. 4. G. Karst 12:20 AM 9/14/12

   What all would we miss, with-out the diligence of amateur astronomers? GK

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5. 5. Plain-2009 01:02 AM 9/14/12

   Thumbs up for amateur astronomers!!
   (Maybe it is not indicated but A little joke. Hope the people of Jupiter are not making a World War!)
   It is really amazing, but it is very clear. No doubt something heavy happened in Jupiter.
   As far as I know Jupiter is all gas. Of course, a little search in Internet can provide us a lot of data.
   I will buy a telescope as soon as possible.

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6. 6. Ungolythe 01:02 AM 9/15/12

   I'm wondering how big it really was. Might something much smaller than a "small comet", say a 100 yards across, still make a bright flash when it hits Jupiter at 135,000 mph? That wouldn't diminish the achievement in the least though and Meade Instruments gets some good pub to boot.

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7. 7. Cosmoknot 05:29 PM 9/21/12

   "Impact" is an assumption. This was a big flash. We saw in 1994 what impacts to the planet look like. Did the impacts of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 make flashes? There doesn't seem to be an impact mark for this one.

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