Emily LakdawallaJun 03, 2010

Confirmation of the Jupiter impact from Christopher Go

Click here for an updated and more coherent account of the June 3 Jupiter impact, 22 hours later.

EDIT Jun 4 02:39: Added color photo processed by Wesley!

EDIT 20:39: Link to Wesley's video posted below!

The impact flash on Jupiter observed earlier today by Anthony Wesley has been confirmed by Philippines-based amateur astronomer Christopher Go. And Go caught video! (Actually, Wesley caught video too, but as of the time that I am writing this, he had not yet finished processing his. I will update this post later once he has shared his video.)  Here's Go's video of the event (WMV format, 140 k)

And...Here's Wesley's video of the event (AVI format, 46 MB) (By the way, I could not get this one to open with Windows Media Player, but iTunes displayed it fine.)

Once again, kudos to Go and Wesley for capturing this fleeting event, and, on behalf of solar system exploration fans everywhere, thanks for your nightly vigilance!

More posts related to this: Astro Bob has coordinates. Spaceweather.com reports coordinates as related by Wesley: "Anthony Wesley has pinpointed the impact site at Jovian latitude minus 16.1°, and central meridian longitudes CM1: 300°, CM2: 33.8° and CM3: 210.4°." Daniel Fischer is posting lots of links on Twitter. Jason Perry is also Tweeting links, and posted predictions for when Europeans may catch the impact site passing by tonight: "The impact site reaches the bright limb at 02:52 UTC, crosses the central meridian at 05:15 UTC and the evening terminator at 07:22 UTC." Wesley now has a page for the images and video he captured of the impact.

Here is Wesley's processed view of the impact:

Jupiter on June 3, 2010: Impact flash recorded by Anthony Wesley
Jupiter on June 3, 2010: Impact flash recorded by Anthony Wesley Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley was observing Jupiter at 20:31 UTC on June 3, 2010 when he fortuitously caught the flash of some object hitting the planet.Image: Anthony Wesley

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