Possible New Impact on Jupiter

By Nancy Atkinson - July 19, 2009 at 2:12 PM UTC | Planetary Science
Jupiter-impact.jpg

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Amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley from Canberra, Australia captured an image of Jupiter on July 19 showing a possible new impact site. Anthony's image shows a new dark spot in the South Polar Region of Jupiter, at approximately 216° longitude in System 2. It looks very similar to the impact marks made on Jupiter when comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into the gas giant in 1994. (But read the

Bad Astronomer's post

that the black spot could also be weather.)

UPDATE (7/20):

It has been confirmed this is an impact on Jupiter. Mike Salway shared the news Glenn Orton from JPL has imaged the Jupiter black spot with the NASA Infrared Telescope and he has confirmed it's an impact.

The list below shows the times (in UT) when the black spot will be visible again (generated in WinJupos by Hans-Joerg Mettig), and found on the

Mike Salway's Ice In Space website.

2009 Jul 19 06:09 ( 216°) 16:05 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 20 02:00 ( 216°) 11:56 ( 216°) 21:52 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 21 07:47 ( 216°) 17:43 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 22 03:38 ( 216°) 13:34 ( 216°) 23:30 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 23 09:25 ( 216°) 19:21 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 24 05:16 ( 216°) 15:12 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 25 01:08 ( 216°) 11:03 ( 216°) 20:59 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 26 06:54 ( 216°) 16:50 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 27 02:45 ( 216°) 12:41 ( 216°) 22:37 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 28 08:32 ( 216°) 18:28 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 29 04:23 ( 216°) 14:19 ( 216°)2009 Jul 30 00:15 ( 216°) 10:10 ( 216°) 20:06 ( 216°) 2009 Jul 31 06:01 ( 216°) 15:57 ( 216°)

If you get the opportunity to observe or image this potential new discovery, please do.

On his observing blog,

Anthony said he began observing Jupiter at approximately 11pm local time (1300UTC), using a 14.5" Newtonian telescope. "I'd noticed a dark spot rotating into view in Jupiter's south polar region and was starting to get curious," he wrote. "When first seen close to the limb (and in poor conditions) it was only a vaguely dark spot, I thought likely to be just a normal dark polar storm. However as it rotated further into view, and the conditions also improved, I suddenly realized that it wasn't just dark, it was black in all channels, meaning it was truly a black spot."

First he thought it might be a dark moon (like Callisto) or a moon shadow, but it was in the wrong place and the wrong size. "Also I'd noticed it was moving too slow to be a moon or shadow. As far as I could see it was rotating in sync with a nearby white oval storm that I was very familiar with - this could only mean that the back feature was at the cloud level and not a projected shadow from a moon. I started to get excited."

Hard-Hat tip to Mike Salway for alerting UT to the news.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com