Impact | Ben Backyard Astronomy

With Earth having passed between Jupiter and the Sun on March 8th, we have some of the finest observations of the Jovian planet. It’s only normal to have a few backyard astronomers setting their sights on the largest planet (myself included, still got unprocessed videos from March 27th). However Gerrit Kernbauer was lucky enough to record an unusual event: something slammed into Jupiter!

Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy reported that Gerrit Kernbauer with his 20cm telescope in Austria, captured on March 17th what appeared to be an impact of sort.

The issue was to confirm that it was an actual impact, and not some other natural effect or electronic noise in his setup. What better than to have a second independent observation, and that came from John McKeon with a 28cm telescope in Ireland.

Maybe I should go take a look at my videos on Jupiter from March 27th just in case… Actually with my 80mm telescope, I don’t think it would have picked up such an impact.

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With the last maneuver planned for April 24th, the Messenger spacecraft will be officially out of fuel and unable to maintain proper orbit around planet Mercury. Scientists expect the spacecraft to crash onto Mercury on April 30th. Unfortunately the impact is expected on the opposite side of the planet, out of view from Earth’s observation posts.

I know for past spacecraft impacts such as those on the Moon, NASA had asked the amateur astronomy community to observe and record the impact. Out of luck and out of reach this time…

Sources: SPACE.COM / NASA