Topic: 'Big Bang on Jupiter'

[Sarah90]

From www.smh.com.au :

"Asher Moses July 21, 2009 - 3:53PM
"An amateur Australian astronomer has set the space-watching world on fire after discovering that a rare comet or asteroid had crashed into Jupiter, leaving an impact the size of Earth.
Anthony Wesley, 44, a computer programmer from Murrumbateman, a village north of Canberra, made the discovery about 1am yesterday using his backyard 14.5-inch reflecting telescope.
The impact would have occurred no more than two days earlier and will only be visible for another few days...Within
hours, his images had spread across the internet on science websites."

"NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed the discovery at 9pm yesterday using its large infrared telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
The only other time astronomers have discovered evidence of a space object having hit Jupiter was when the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet collided with the giant planet in July, 1994.
That event was also the first direct observation of two objects colliding in space.
Glenn Orton, the NASA scientist who confirmed Wesley's discovery, said: "We are extremely lucky to be seeing Jupiter at exactly the right time, the right hour, the right side of Jupiter to witness the event. We couldn't have planned it better."
Orton said he was not yet sure whether the object that hit Jupiter was a comet, asteroid or some other piece of space junk. But the impact mark is about the size of the Earth.
"It's been a whirlwind of a day and this, on the anniversary of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Apollo anniversaries, is amazing," he said."

[Kurgan]

It's great that an amateur observed it first.   http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-112 

[Orstio]

Thanks Sarah.  All other reports I've read of it so far mention Anthony Wesley in passing.  It's a great discovery he's made.

[Orstio]

http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0909.html

Had to laugh about this one -- Some darn good calculations made by the Hubble team there:

Simon-Miller estimated that the diameter of the object that slammed into Jupiter was at least twice the size of several football fields.

As opposed to three times the size of a couple of baseball diamonds?

[Astronuc]

More on the story:
The telescope and amateur Anthony Wesley.  Nice scope!
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/07/26/fashion/26Jupiter.2.ready.html
Story
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/fashion/26Jupiter.html
I once had the opportunity of using a 14-inch Celestron to view details of Saturn as part of an Astronomy course in university.  We later took it and it's twin to the Davis Mountains in W. Texas as part of a field trip.  We did a lot of night viewing of the Milky Way.

Hubble's (HST) view - http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2009/25jul09/hs-2009-23-a-print.jpg?PHPSESSID=66oq0llm91odbg26hp5s8mmf51
More on the story and the telescope.
http://jupiter.samba.org/jupiter-impact.html