Something went into the Jupiter last year – and a NASA spacecraft saw it happen

NASA’s Juno spacecraft apparently witnessed the moment an asteroid or comet entered Jupiter and exploded into the atmosphere, according to a team of researchers.

The incident happened last year on Friday, April 10, 2020, when the Jupiter-orbiting spacecraft Juno was exploring the gas giant planet.

As the spacecraft passed, its ultraviolet instrument – designed to study the Jupiter aurorae – saw something strange.

For a very short 17 million miles, there was a clear shower in the high atmosphere of Jupiter, at an altitude of 225 kilometers.

This was apparently a meteor hitting the planet, when it exploded later as it entered the atmosphere – known as a bolide.

The energy released by the object, which reached over 9,000 degrees Celsius in temperature, allowed the team to estimate its magnitude.

“We suggest that this was a fireball made by a 250 to 5,000-kilogram meteoroid entering Jupiter’s atmosphere,” they wrote in their paper describing what had happened. to seek.

This corresponded to a size of about one to four meters across, up to approximately the length of a car.

Effects on Jupiter are less unusual, as it is the second largest object in the Solar System after the Sun and so its weight attracts many other square groups.

The most famous hit in the history of the comet was the Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994, but amateur astronomers have seen about six from Earth in the last decade.

Several spacecraft have also seen several effects, namely NASA’s Voyager 1 and the Galileo spacecraft.

However, while common, Juno ‘s abilities allowed him to study the nature of this effect in great detail, with the team able to work out its size, height and temperature.

“Getting the full spectrum of the flash bright will allow us to extract temperature and altitude for the fireball,” said Rohini Giles of the Southwest Texas Research Institute, lead author of the paper. .

Although this was an interesting event, however, Juno’s vision was “just a tiny picture in time,” says Giles.

Juno spins while spinning around Jupiter, meaning he was only able to see the impact for a brief moment – just 17 milliseconds.

So there is little information about what happened to him before or after the picture that Juno saw.

“But we know we didn’t see him spin earlier or spin later, so it must have been very short-lived,” Giles said.

The observation is useful, however, as it helps us update our estimates for the rate at which objects hit Jupiter.

The team estimates that an estimated 24,000 objects will hit the planet each year between 250 and 5,000 kilograms a year, which is estimated to be the case.

And as well as just being interesting, there is a scientific reason to do so as well.

“Effects from asteroids and comets can have a profound effect on the planet’s stratospheric chemistry,” says Giles.

For example, even 15 years after its impact, the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet was still responsible for 95 percent of the water in the Jupiter stratosphere.

“So stopping the impact level is an important element of understanding the shape of the planet,” says Giles.