By DPA,
Washington : Jupiter appears to have again been hit by a speeding celestial object that left a giant dark scar in the giant gaseous planet’s atmosphere, NASA astronomers said.
The US space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory received a tip early Monday from Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley who had spied the spot near the planet’s south pole. Scientists then pointed NASA’s infrared telescope in Hawaii at the planet and detected signs – including particles in the upper atmosphere and a warming of the lower atmosphere – that it may have been struck by a comet.
Astronomers were continuing to conduct tests to determine whether the impact was indeed caused by a comet.
The impact came on the 15th anniversary of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet that broke into pieces and slammed into Jupiter in 1994. Those July 16-22 events represented the first observed collision of two celestial bodies in the solar system. While that event was widely anticipated, this week’s collision was unexpected.
“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. We couldn’t have planned it better,” NASA scientist Glenn Orton said.