Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
Volume 721, Issue 2, Pages L129-L133Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/721/2/L129
Keywords
planets and satellites: atmospheres; planets and satellites: general; planets and satellites: individual (Jupiter)
Categories
Funding
- Spanish MICIIN [AYA2009-10701]
- FEDER
- Grupos Gobierno Vasco [IT-464-07]
- Glasstone Science Fellowship
- NASA [NAS 5-26555]
- NSF [AST-0909182]
- Ajax Foundation
- HST [GO/DD-12119]
- National Science Foundation (United States)
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (United Kingdom)
- National Research Council (Canada)
- CONICYT (Chile)
- Australian Research Council (Australia)
- Ministerio da Ciencia e Tecnologia (Brazil)
- Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion Productiva (Argentina)
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- Planetary Astronomy Program.
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [909182] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Cosmic collisions on planets cause detectable optical flashes that range from terrestrial shooting stars to bright fireballs. On 2010 June 3 a bolide in Jupiter's atmosphere was simultaneously observed from the Earth by two amateur astronomers observing Jupiter in red and blue wavelengths. The bolide appeared as a flash of 2 s duration in video recording data of the planet. The analysis of the light curve of the observations results in an estimated energy of the impact of (0.9-4.0) x 10(15) J which corresponds to a colliding body of 8-13 m diameter assuming a mean density of 2 g cm(-3). Images acquired a few days later by the Hubble Space Telescope and other large ground-based facilities did not show any signature of aerosol debris, temperature, or chemical composition anomaly, confirming that the body was small and destroyed in Jupiter's upper atmosphere. Several collisions of this size may happen on Jupiter on a yearly basis. A systematic study of the impact rate and size of these bolides can enable an empirical determination of the flux of meteoroids in Jupiter with implications for the populations of small bodies in the outer solar system and may allow a better quantification of the threat of impacting bodies to Earth. The serendipitous recording of this optical flash opens a new window in the observation of Jupiter with small telescopes.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available