2010 Jupiter impact event

2010 Jupiter impact event

Observations made by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
Date	June 3, 2010 (2010-06-03)
Location	Jupiter

The 2010 Jupiter impact event was a bolide impact event on Jupiter by an object estimated to be about 8–13 meters in diameter. The impactor may have been an asteroid, comet, centaur, extinct comet, or temporary satellite capture.

Observation

2010 Jupiter impact event

The impact happened 3 June 2010, and was recorded and first reported by amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley from Australia. The event was confirmed by Christopher Go at the Philippines, who recorded the event, and has released a video. Wesley is the same person who had been first to report the 2009 Jupiter impact event.

The observed flash lasted about two seconds. It was located in the South Equatorial Belt, about fifty degrees from the central meridian. The June 2010 superbolide impactor probably measured between 8–13 meters across, with a mass between 500-2000 metric tons. Jupiter probably gets hit by several objects of this size each year.

On 20 August 2010 UT, yet another flash event was detected on Jupiter. As of August 23 two other observers had recorded the same event.

Other impacts

1994 impact

Main article: Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9

In July 1994 the Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 broke apart and collided with Jupiter, resulting in a series of hits. This incident had been predicted in advance.

2009 impact

Hubble image of the scar taken on 23 July 2009 during the 2009 Jupiter impact event, showing a blemish of about 8,000 kilometres long.

Main article: 2009 Jupiter impact event

On 19 July 2009 an impact was observed, which caused a black spot on Jupiter's atmosphere. This unpredicted event was first reported by Anthony Wesley, who also first observed the 2010 event. The 2009 impact has been studied by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, and the study suggests that the observed incident was a hit by an asteroid about 500 metres wide.

2012 impact

On 10 September 2012 at 11:35 UT amateur astronomer Dan Petersen visually detected a fireball on Jupiter that lasted 1 or 2 seconds using a Meade 12″ LX200. George Hall had been recording Jupiter with a webcam on his 12" Meade; upon hearing the news Hall checked the video to see if the impact was captured. Hall had indeed captured a 4-second clip of the impact and released the video to the public. The impact's estimated position in the system was longitude = 345 and latitude = +2. Dr Michael H. Wong estimated that the fireball was created by a meteoroid less than 10 meters in diameter. Several collisions of this size may happen on Jupiter on a yearly basis. The 2012 impact was the 5th impact observed on Jupiter, and the fourth impact seen on Jupiter between 2009 and 2012. It was quite similar to the flash observed on 20 August 2010.

2016 Impact

On March 17, 2016 an impact's fireball observed on Jupiter's limb was recorded by Gerrit Kernbauer, Moedling, Austria with an 8" telescope operating at f/15. This report was later confirmed by an independent observation by amateur John McKeon.

See also

• Jupiter impact events
• List of Jupiter events