[meteorite-list] Amateur astronomers observe asteroids colliding with Jupiter

From: Robin Whittle <rw_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 13:11:54 +1000
Message-ID: <523676FA.3030501_at_firstpr.com.au>

Here is a recent press release with a few small photos:


http://www.europlanet-eu.org/epsc2013/media-press/76-epsc2013/media-press/627-fireballs-in-jupiter-s-atmosphere-observed-by-amateur-astronomers

  The giant planet Jupiter - a big target with tremendous gravitational
  attraction - gets hit far more often than the Earth, and these
  collisions are much faster, happen at a minimum speed of 60
  kilometers per second.

  Amateur astronomers observing Jupiter with video cameras have been
  able to observe three of these collisions in the last 3 years and a
  detailed report of these collisions has been presented at the
  European Planetary Science Congress at UCL this week by Ricardo Hueso
  (University of the Basque Country, Spain).

  "Our analysis shows that Jupiter could be impacted by objects around
  10 meters across between 12 and 60 times per year," Hueso says. "That
  is around 100 times more often than the Earth."

  The study, a broad collaboration between professional and amateur
  astronomers, also includes detailed simulations of objects entering
  Jupiter?s atmosphere and disintegrating at temperatures above
  10,000 C and observations from telescopes such as the Hubble Space
  Telescope or the Very Large Telescope of the impact area taken only
  tens of hours after the impact. Despite observing the planet soon
  after the impact, Hubble and the VLT saw no signature of the
  disintegrated objects, showing that such impacts are very brief
  events.

I couldn't find a paper or a presentation, but there is a paper - PDF
available - co-authored by Ricardo Hueso from 2010 which has photos from
a Jupiter impact:

  Astrophysical Journal Letters , 721:L129?L133, 2010 October 1
  FIRST EARTH-BASED DETECTION OF A SUPERBOLIDE ON JUPITER
  R. Hueso et al.
  http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/721/2/L129

  - Robin
Received on Sun 15 Sep 2013 11:11:54 PM PDT