2012 and Planet X News Blog

NASA has been all jazzed up for the last few days about views obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope of an impact to Jupiter’s southernmost regions.  Hubble took remarkable photos of the impact.  In fact, the Hubble team temporarily broke away from its calibration of Hubble’s new equipment to take them.

Hubble Space Telescope Captures Rare Jupiter Collision

by Staff Writers
Baltimore MD (SPX) Jul 27, 2009

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has taken the sharpest visible-light picture yet of atmospheric debris from an object that collided with Jupiter on July 19. NASA scientists decided to interrupt the recently refurbished observatory’s checkout and calibration to take the image of a new, expanding spot on the giant planet on July 23.

Discovered by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley, the spot was created when a small comet or asteroid plunged into Jupiter’s atmosphere and disintegrated. The only other time such a feature has been seen on Jupiter was 15 years ago after the collision of fragments from comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

“Because we believe this magnitude of impact is rare, we are very fortunate to see it with Hubble,” said Amy Simon-Miller of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Details seen in the Hubble view shows a lumpiness to the debris plume caused by turbulence in Jupiter’s atmosphere.”

It is indeed a beautiful picture, but this is just the first impact to a planet’s southern reaches that Hubble has captured. How many more of these will we have to see before the majority of the world “gets it?”  Wake up, folks; the Universe is not just doing this for our entertainment.

Catch you on the Backside!

Janice Manning

2012 and Planet X Bulletin