Wesley's Jupiter Impactor an Asteriod

[CraigS]

In the News this morning, it looks like they've confirmed Anthony Wesley's object, which impacted Jupiter on July 19, 2009, to be an Asteroid:

New evidence that asteroid, not comet, struck Jupiter in 2009 (http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-evidence-asteroid-comet-struck-jupiter.html)



They're estimating the density at around 2.5 grams per cubic centimetres.

Cheers

[iceman]

They should name the asteroid after him!

[CraigS]

Yes .. I reckon its Anthony's !

Maybe he now owns a part of Jupiter, as well !
;)

Does that also mean that Australia could lay claim to Jupiter ?
:)

Cheers
PS: Oops !! .. I forgot the Galileo probe which NASA dropped into Jupiter's atmosphere in Dec 1995 … pipped at the post, again !

[renormalised]

What about SL-9 (1994)....Dave Levy was at his home in the US when he spied it. But I think Gene Shoemaker was out here when he found it first. So we'll make Gene a (posthumous) honorary Australian citizen and claim the planet :):P

[mswhin63]

Thank goodness that Jupiter swept it up. Can you imagine if it hit here. I hope the floating lifeforms on Jupiter managed to get out of the way.

[Outbackmanyep]

Correction: David Levy and Gene Shoemaker photographed the area on the night of the discovery, Carolyn Shoemaker found whilst scanning the resultant photographs, all comets with the Shoemaker-Levy designation were all credited to Carolyn and David.
They used the 16" Schmidt camera at Mt Palomar.
A by-product of searching for NEO's! :thumbsup:

[renormalised]

Thank you for the correction....in any case since Gene was the professional scientist here...and professionals take precedence over amateurs, :):P, and Gene spent lots of time out here and we make him a honorary citizen of Oz, that gives us dibs on the planet :):):):P:P

[Outbackmanyep]

Agree to that! :thumbsup:

[CraigS]

Ok … done !

We can levy a fee upon all the other countries of the world everytime we observe Jupiter doing its clean-up job … the astronomer who witnesses such an event will be entitled to a slice of the action !

Now there's some motivation for Oz amateur astronomers !

:)

Cheers