Impact: Amateurs observe Jupiter taking another for the team
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March 5, 1979 image of Jupiter by Voyager I showing a fireball in the atmosphere (Photo: NASA)
Photo of Jupiter taken June 10, 2010 by Anthony Wesley, an Australian amateur astronomer, of a fireball caused by the impact of a small (8-13 meter) asteroid hitting the planet (Photo: Anthony Wesley)
Photo of Jupiter taken July 19.2009 by Anthony Wesley, an Australian amateur astronomer, of the scar left by the impact of an asteroid hitting the planet (Photo: Anthony Wesley)
Photo of Jupiter taken September 10, 2012 by George Hall of a fireball caused by the impact of a small (5-10 meter) asteroid hitting the planet (Photo: George Hall)
Hubble image of the scar left on Jupiter's surface in July of 2009 by a half-kilometer diameter asteroid colliding with the surface (Photo: NASA)
Full disk image of Jupiter taken by NASA and ESA's Cassini probe (Photo: NASA)
Photo of Jupiter taken September 10, 2012 by George Hall of a fireball caused by the impact of a small (5-10 meter) asteroid hitting the planet (Photo: George Hall)
Article Summary
Jupiter is a major player in protecting the Earth from impact events, and has been for billions of years. Between comets and asteroids impacting on Jupiter and being flung into the Sun or out of the Solar System entirely, Jupiter's enormous gravitational field has removed the greater proportion of debris left-over from the formation of the Solar System. Jupiter has again been caught in the act of attracting and eating dangerous space rocks—this time in simultaneous observations by two amateur astronomers.
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