Want to Watch Something Crash-Land on Jupiter?
Whoa! Something just hit Jupiter! The impact—which must have been huge to be visible on earth—was recorded by two different amateur astronomers, one in Australia and one in the Philippines. Was it... an alien vessel?? (No.)
Anthony Wesley and Christopher Go, two amateur astronomers in Australia and the Philippines, respectively, were lucky enough to record the impact early Wednesday morning, their time. That's Christopher Go's video above—the impact is the brief bright spot on the lower right of the planet.
Wesley should probably buy a lottery ticket, or something, because this is the second time he's witnessed an impact on Jupiter—last year he watched it get hit by an asteroid with the force of "hundreds of thousands of nuclear weapons." Bad-ass. I mean, space, guys. Right? Is it the coolest, or what?
So what hit our solar system's biggest planet? Astronomers will be super-psyched to figure it out. Sky & Telescope says it's "presumably the impact of an asteroid or comet nucleus." Boring! Let's all agree to pretend it was the Silver Surfer.
