An amateur astronomer has spotted the impact of an unknown object on Jupiter. The dark spot near Jupiter's southern pole (pictured, inset) was detected by Anthony Wesley of Murrumbateman, near Canberra, Australia, on 19 July. Shortly afterwards, word of the finding spread quickly via e-mails and the Internet.
Follow-up observations by the Keck infrared telescope (pictured) and by NASA's InfraRed Telescope Facility, both on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, rule out a storm, according to Glenn Orton, a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "This looks like nothing on Jupiter that is occurring naturally," Orton says.
The impact took place almost exactly 15 years after the first fragments of the comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 slammed into the giant planet.
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Jupiter takes a hit. Nature 460, 449 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/460449e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/460449e
