- Jupiter was hit by an unidentified space object
- The event was recorded by the Brazilian amateur astronomer Jose Luis Pereira, initially ignoring it
- Due to its location, Jupiter is often hit by various space stars
- You can find more such stories on the Onet homepage
Little did he know at first that he had recorded the moment of the impact
Jose Luis Pereira captured a white streak on the surface of the largest planet in the solar system. The incident took place on Monday, September 13. The photo, taken by the amateur astronomer, shows a cosmic rock trail in Jupiter’s atmosphere.
– I am a persistent observer. When the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars are in opposition, I try to take pictures of them whenever I have the opportunity. Especially Jupiter, which is my favorite planet – said Pereira in an interview with Space.com.
Pereira on Sunday and Monday deployed its equipment to photograph Jupiter and take a closer look and collect more recordings for the DeTeCT program, which aims to try to characterize the impacts on this giant planet. Ultimately, he recorded 25 films, and noticed a white glow on the first of them. However, he did not pay much attention to her and continued recording. Later he went to sleep.
He did not check the results of the observations until Tuesday morning. He was also informed about the high probability of an impact. Pereira sent a report to Marc Delcroix of the French Astronomical Society, who confirmed that the Brazilian recorded the moment of the impact. – It’s an amazing event for me. I have been waiting for years to be able to capture this phenomenon, admitted Pereira. The moment of the impact can be observed in the following video:
Jupiter is hit frequently
Jupiter orbits close to the main asteroid belt and also has a strong gravitational pull. For this reason, it is often hit by various space objects. In July 1994, fragments of shattered comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 struck Jupiter, and since then eight similar events have been captured by observers.
The 1994 impact gave researchers material to explore the planet in more depth. In the case of the phenomenon observed by Pereira, this is unlikely to be possible. “The object was probably too small to reach a deeper atmosphere,” astrophotographer Damian Peach wrote on Twitter.
Source: space.com
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