Someone filming Jupiter just caught a massive impact event - watch it here.
Scientists marveled over a recent video submitted by an amateur astronomer based in Austria. According to a report from Popular Mechanics, the space enthusiast was peering at the massive gas giant Jupiter when he captured something truly spectacular.
Gerrit Kernbaur, the backyard astronomer that shot the video, is one of the first people to witness an impact between the surface of Jupiter and an extra-planetary object whizzing through space in years. It’s unclear as to what it actually was that smashed into Jupiter’s surface, but researchers believer it could even be an asteroid or a comet.
Jupiter plays a vital role in our solar system, and even offers protection to Earth from asteroids and meteors whizzing towards our orbital path. The gas giant’s strong gravitational pull ensures that most small objects get sucked up before they ever get close to the Earth. Without Jupiter, our home would probably be riddled with impact craters and miss its habitable atmosphere.
The object that struck Jupiter’s surface in the recent video was likely small, astronomers say. Due to Jupiter’s strong gravitational pull, however, it rapidly reached a high velocity and put on quite a show as it entered the gas giant’s atmosphere. In the video, you can see the planet light up as if there were a massive lightning storm or fireworks show in the bottom hemisphere. The explosion was equivalent in force to 12,500,000 tons of TNT.
Collisions like this aren’t particularly rare, but it certainly isn’t common for an amateur astronomer to be filming at the exact time of the impact. The last famous collision captured on the surface of Jupiter was the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet collision, which was recorded by NASA’s Galileo probe. NASA’s new Jupiter probe, Juno, will enter the planet’s orbit later this year. Scientists expect to view more similar collisions in high definition in the near future – stay tuned.