Something suddenly struck in Jupiter. We managed to film it! – News Gazeta.pl

A small asteroid or comet a few days ago in Jupiter with such force that the flare was able to register on Earth amateur telescopes. March 17 Jupiter filmed Austrian Gerrit Kernbauer – a way of looking at the sky gives you the ability to record dozens of frames per second. After processing this material, you can create images of extraordinary sharpness – a summary of different frames allows you to remove distortions caused by the Earth’s atmosphere.

It was on this film managed to capture the flash appears on the edge of the planet . Take a look at – you can see it on the right side, at the upper of the two lanes visible.

However, a single movie is a weak evidence – that flash could be a mistake created during registration or accidental flare of light. Fortunately, at the same time watching the sky from Ireland other amateur astronomer, John McKeon. Also, he was able to register this phenomenon, and it has strong evidence.

According to experts object that hit Jupiter could be a small comet or – more likely – an asteroid. Small, so measuring tens of meters. For comparison – the car, which broke up the Czelabińskiem was approx. 17-20 meters in diameter and was thus comparable size. How is it possible that such a piece of rock on Jupiter caused a flash so powerful that it was visible from Earth?

You have to remember that Jupiter’s gravity is 2.4 times stronger than the earth, and this depends on the speed at which the object is approaching the planet. Meanwhile, the energy with which the collision occurs, is increasing with the square of speed – if the object moves twice faster, it released energy will be four times greater. This is enough to trigger flare, which can register on film been done by an amateur telescope.

There remains the question of “surface” of Jupiter – is a gas giant whose atmosphere extends to a depth of about 1000 km. Below is a layer of metallic hydrogen, and in the center – the nucleus of unknown composition. Thus, the object – whatever it was – did not hit the surface of the planet, but its atmosphere. However, at speeds of orbital pressure arising from the entry into the clouds of Jupiter it is so big that the car heats up immediately and breaks into pieces that burn in the atmosphere.

Though rarely manage to capture such phenomena , that Jupiter is constantly bombarded by different objects orbiting the solar system. Its huge mass makes a lot of debris, which tend toward the sun and the inner planets are captured by Jupiter. If not for this cosmic vacuum cleaner, life on Earth would be in serious trouble – events such as Chelyabinsk would have been much more frequent, and the great extinction, similar to that before 66 million years, there would be something special.

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