Jupiter impacts
Alain Fournier
First I would like to thank our new moderators for giving us their time
and reviving this newsgroup. I would also like to thank the previous
moderator, George Herbert, though he hasn't been moderating for some
time, he did so very well for many years in the past.
We had Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994 and now an other big impact with Jupiter.
Does anyone know what would be the likelihood that other big impacts
happened since 1994 but just weren't noticed. I don't think there is
any systematic observation of Jupiter that would catch all, or even most,
such events. There probably are many amateurs looking at Jupiter
regularly, but many of those amateurs have small telescopes that can
barely detect the Great Red Spot.
Alain Fournier
Dan Birchall
"Alain Fournier" <alai...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> We had Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994 and now an other big impact with Jupiter.
SL9, of course, was detected some 15 months prior to its impacts - long
enough that people could construct cameras like QUIRC and observe it. This
new one wasn't detected until after the impact.
> Does anyone know what would be the likelihood that other big impacts
> happened since 1994 but just weren't noticed.
I'm going to say "slim to none" for a couple reasons, below.
> I don't think there is any systematic observation of Jupiter that
> would catch all, or even most, such events.
The Galileo mission observed Jupiter and its moons from 1995-2003, so it's
only been in the last ~6 years that we didn't have a probe in the
neighborhood full-time.
> There probably are many amateurs looking at Jupiter regularly, but many
> of those amateurs have small telescopes that can barely detect the Great
> Red Spot.
This impact was first detected by an amateur (Anthony Wesley) with a 14.5"
scope, I believe using video frame stacking software - q.v.
http://jupiter.samba.org/ for all his info.
Looking through such a telescope with your eye, yes, you might have a hard
time detecting the Great Red Spot. But your eye is a lot sensitive than a
decent CCD, and you can't set your eye's integration time. Small telescopes
are capable of imaging solar system objects just as well as large
"professional" ones - they just need longer integration times.
To the extent that the amateurs who look at Jupiter regularly happen to be
into astrophotography, and take sensible integrations of it, I would expect
most or all impacts to be detected in short order.
-Dan
--
Dan Birchall, Night Operation Assistant, Subaru Telescope, NAOJ
Views I express are my own and may not reflect those of my employer.
Van Chocstraw
With the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, I imagine there are
many more impacts than noticed.
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