Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), A.A. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), H.B. As this compilation of images shows, we saw no UV dark spot and no near-IR bright spot for the June 3 event. This was seen for the 1994 Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts, as well as the 2009 impact. In the very near infrared region (bottom box, “Near IR”), which is where trace amounts of methane gas absorb light in Jupiter’s atmosphere, the planet itself is darker than debris soot, so the smudge would be brighter than its surroundings. In the visible region (top box, “true color”) and ultraviolet region (middle box), we would see a dark, sooty smudge. We would be able to see the debris at several wavelengths of light. If an object had descended beneath Jupiter’s clouds and exploded as a fireball, then debris would have rained down on the cloud tops. The strongest evidence that the bright flash seen on Jupiter was a meteor comes from what Hubble did not see: a sooty trail of debris. There have been ongoing searches for the “black-eye” pattern of a deep direct hit. But they didn’t know how deeply it penetrated into the atmosphere. The space visitor did not plunge deep enough into the atmosphere to explode and leave behind any telltale cloud of debris, as seen in previous Jupiter collisions.Īstronomers around the world knew that something must have hit the giant planet to unleash a flash of energy bright enough to be seen 400 million miles away. It came from a giant meteor burning up high above Jupiter’s cloud tops. Simon-Miller (Goddard Space Flight Center), and the Jupiter Impact Science Teamĭetailed observations made by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found an answer to the flash of light seen June 3 on Jupiter. A closer look at Jupiter reveals a faint imprint where the giant meteor touched its surface three days before.
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