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Old 20-07-2009, 08:21 PM
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renormalised (Carl)
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You have to remember that the dynamics of an object hitting Jupiter are somewhat different than those hitting the Earth. Whereas most of the impacting energy of an object hitting the Earth is deposited into the ground, on Jupiter it has only a deep atmosphere to dissipate its energy into. The dynamic characteristics of the explosion are different. On Jupiter, you have a blast that's akin to a massive airburst. Basically, the object plunges into the atmosphere till it reaches a depth where the atmospheric resistance becomes greater than the object's structure can handle and it flash vapourises. It forms an enormous fireball which looks for the point of least resistance to escape to, which in this case is up. It's much like creating an enormous torch like jet of superheated atmospheric gases and asteroid/cometary materials that blasts its way to the upper atmosphere and then spreads out. In a planet which is predominantly gas, the effects are very spectacular, even for relatively small to medium impactors. However, the object which caused this was probably quite substantial in size.....Chicxulub in size, maybe. If it was, then it was a 100 million megaton explosion, and we know how big a hole it excavated!!!.

Huge, but far less spectacular than a similar burst on Jupiter.
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