What Caused the Recent Explosion at Jupiter?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

What Caused the Recent Explosion at Jupiter?

A bright flash was spotted on Jupiter early on the morning of September 10, 2012, and astronomers were hoping to later see an impact “scar” which would provide more information about the object that slammed into the giant gas planet. Was it a comet, asteroid or a smaller meteor? But alas, no impact scar or debris field showed up on Jupiter’s face and the nature of this explosion may remain a mystery.

“By performing spectroscopic measurement of the debris field we hope to be capable of determining the nature of the impactor,” SETI astronomer Franck Marchis told Universe Today via email. “Without debris field it is virtually impossible since the bolide burned in the upper atmosphere. One day we may be capable of recorded a spectrum of the meteor itself (during the impact) but right now we don’t have such capabilities.”

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[tipotep]

I watched this on the local news the other day , very interesting .

Waspie - you are a bit of a guru at this sort of thing , they were talking about there being no impact crater , pardon my ignorance but being a gas planet wouldn't a meteor or comet pass into the top layers of gas and not leave a mark ? Or is it that the gas is dense and would crate an impact as such ? , I have often wonderd about this .

TiP

[Waspie_Dwarf]

they were talking about there being no impact crater , pardon my ignorance but being a gas planet wouldn't a meteor or comet pass into the top layers of gas and not leave a mark ? Or is it that the gas is dense and would crate an impact as such ? , I have often wonderd about this .

TiP

There certainly wouldn't be a crater.

Meteors hitting dense atmospheres do so at such a speed that the kinetic energy of their motion gets converted into heat energy rather rapidly. Many, fairly large, objects never make it to Earth's surface because they explode in the atmosphere. In the case of Jupiter and it's extraordinarily dense atmosphere this is always the case.

Although no crater is caused by such an atmospheric explosion, in previously observed impacts with Jupiter (most notably the multiple impacts with fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9) there have been tell-tale effects left in the atmosphere. No such effects have been observed this time.

[tipotep]

There certainly wouldn't be a crater.

Meteors hitting dense atmospheres do so at such a speed that the kinetic energy of their motion gets converted into heat energy rather rapidly. Many, fairly large, objects never make it to Earth's surface because they explode in the atmosphere. In the case of Jupiter and it's extraordinarily dense atmosphere this is always the case.

Although no crater is caused by such an atmospheric explosion, in previously observed impacts with Jupiter (most notably the multiple impacts with fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9) there have been tell-tale effects left in the atmosphere. No such effects have been observed this time.

Thanks mate , I knew you could clear this up for me

TiP.

[NatureBoff]

It reminded me of the mysterious impactor at Tungustka. No crater *or* debris was found, only devastated trees for kilometres around. The airburst theory doesn't appear to fit due to there being no fragments found, although this seems to be continually overlooked. Both events are likely caused by 'exotic matter comets' imo.

[Abramelin]

It reminded me of the mysterious impactor at Tungustka. No crater *or* debris was found, only devastated trees for kilometres around. The airburst theory doesn't appear to fit due to there being no fragments found, although this seems to be continually overlooked. Both events are likely caused by 'exotic matter comets' imo.

You might want to read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event#Lake_Cheko

[NatureBoff]

You might want to read this: http://en.wikipedia....vent#Lake_Cheko

Thank you, this evidence only supports the exotic matter comet hypothesis of being a round a metre in diameter, which is a useful measurement to have incidentally. There should be thousands of micro meteorites from the airburst event, but there *AREN'T ANY!!* PLEASE! Can anyone see this simple anomaly?