Jupiter has apparently been smacked again by a rogue object hurtling through space, new images from amateur astronomers and NASA reveal. A giant scar-like blemish has appeared in the clouds near Jupiter's south polar region, which NASA observed in infrared after receiving a tip from an amateur skywatcher in Australia. The likely impact appears to have occurred exactly 15 years after the remnants of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 bombarded the planet in 1994 in an event that was widely predicted and scrutinized as it happened.
The latest impact was not predicted, and it was caught by chance.
"We were extremely lucky to be seeing Jupiter at exactly the right time, the right hour, the right side of Jupiter to witness the event," said Glenn Orton, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement. "We couldn't have planned it better."
Orton and his colleagues used JPL's Infrared Telescope Facility atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii to collect evidence of the impact. The initial call came from Anthony Wesley of Murrumbateman, Australia, who told NASA he noticed a new dark "scar" suddenly appear on Jupiter early Friday between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m. EDT (1000 and 1600 GMT).