Vocabulary In the News: Jupiter’s Been Hit!

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/720/1?rss=1

By Richard A. Kerr
ScienceNOW Daily News
20 July 2009

A large object has slammed into Jupiter, leaving behind a giant black smudge that was first reported yesterday by an amateur astronomer. The find is only the second time in recorded history that scientists have glimpsed an impact scar in the atmosphere of a giant planet. "I never expected I'd get to see something like this," says astronomer Leigh Fletcher, a postdoc at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

Amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley had been taking routine images of Jupiter through his 37-centimeter telescope (pros would be on a 1000-centimeter instrument) in Murrumbateman, Australia, at about 11:30 p.m. local time, when he noticed something unusual: a dark spot several thousands of kilometers across rotating into view high in Jupiter's south polar region (see picture). Wesley had been about to end his observing run, and he initially considered passing the spot off as a typical dark polar storm. But he decided to keep at it, and in 15 minutes more he believed he was seeing something else entirely.

Wesley suspected an impact and soon contacted Fletcher and JPL astronomer Glenn Orton. As luck would have it, the duo had previously scheduled time on the NASA Infrared Telescope on Hawaii (remotely operated from JPL), so they took a closer look. They found the same distinctive infrared signature as Orton and others saw 15 years ago this week when the 21-plus fragments of disrupted comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter one after the other  "We've been incredibly fortunate to have a talented amateur report this within hours," says Fletcher. Such amateurs "are doing some of the fundamental work of observing what's happening on Jupiter," adds Orton.

The impact "was a bit of a surprise," says astronomer Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, who observed the 1994 impacts with the Hubble Space Telescope. "We all thought these were a little more rare." This one--a solitary event so far--looks like one of Shoemaker-Levy 9's medium-size impacts, says Hammel. How large the rocky asteroid or icy comet was is hard to estimate, says astronomer Harold Weaver of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. There was never any consensus on the size of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 objects, but this one might have been several hundred meters across--a kilometer at most--and traveling at tens of thousands of kilometers per hour.

If scientists are to retrieve any new information about jovian impacts, they'll have to be quick about it. Winds are tearing the black splotch apart even as astronomers race to submit their emergency proposals for telescope time--including time on the recently renovated Hubble Space Telescope.

Vocabulary In the News: Boy Hit by Meteorite

I’m trying a new technique for vocabulary; instead of giving you the definitions in French or English at the end of the article, I’m adding direct links to a webpage with the definition. The hope is that you will expand your vocabulary by discovering other uses or variations. I can’t do all the work for you! ;-) You will have to explore some pages to find the definitions.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20090612/sc_space/boyhitbymeteorite

SPACE.com Staff
Fri Jun 12, 9:45 am ET

A 14-year old German boy was hit in the hand by a pea-sized meteorite that scared the bejeezus out of him and left a scar.

"When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road," Gerrit Blank said in a newspaper account. Astronomers have analyzed the object and conclude it was indeed a natural object from space, The Telegraph reports.

Most meteors vaporize in the atmosphere, creating "shooting stars," and never reach the ground. The few that do are typically made mostly of metals. Stony space rocks, even if they are big as a car, will usually break apart or explode as they crash through the atmosphere.

There are a handful of reports of homes and cars being struck by meteorites, and many cases of space rocks streaking to the surface and being found later.

But human strikes are rare. There are no known instances of humans being killed by space rocks.

According to a SPACE.com article on the topic a few years back:

• On November 30, 1954, Alabama housewife Ann Hodges was taking a nap on her couch when she was awakened by a 3-pound (1.4-kilogram) meteor that crashed through the roof of her house, bounced off a piece of furniture and struck her in the hip, causing a large bruise.
• On October 9, 1992, a large fireball was seen streaking over the eastern United States, finally exploding into many pieces. In Peekskill, New York, one of the pieces struck a Chevrolet automobile owned by Michelle Knapp. Knapp was not in the car at the time.
• On June 21, 1994, Jose Martin of Spain was driving with his wife near Madrid when a 3-pound (1.4-kilogram) meteor crashed through his windshield, bent the steering wheel and ended up in the back seat.
• In 2004, a 2,000-pound space rock bigger than a refrigerator exploded in the late-night sky over Chicago, producing a large flash and a sound resembling a detonation that woke people up. Fragments rained down on that wild Chicago night, and many were collected by residents in a northern suburb.