Theory Impactors at Jupiter

As an impactor at Jupiter was spotted in last July 2009 and that a bright spot in the atmosphere of Venus was by about the same period, NASA's Cassini mission, which is working in the Saturnian system, lately spotted, by June 2009, that an object had punched through the F-ring of Saturn. It could be the feat of an object orbiting around Saturn and crossing the ring's plane by intervals, as it might be as well the tracks of a celestial object which could make its way inside the system! And let's recall that a asteroid threatenend to crash unto Mars by January 2008! That all points to that small remnants of the solar system formation 4.5 billion years ago are freely roaming in our solar system and that fireballs, small or larger impactors are a frequent occurrence at most of the planets there. As far as Jupiter is concerned, amateur astronomers lately were able to spot more such impacts after the one of 2009, two in June and August 2010 then one in September 2012

Small Impactors a Frequent Occurrence

That question of the small impactors in the solar system is mostly one not studied by professional astronomers. It is mostly the impact observed by a amateur astronomer by July 2009 at Jupiter, which triggered a interest. As far as Jupiter is concerned, it is acting like a big gravitational vacuum cleaner, relatively small remnants of the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, hit Jupiter frequently. Astronomers are using the time of amateurs astronomers worldwide to enrole them to check the frequency of those hits. As cosmic rays striking during a amateur video capture last last only for one frame, such impacts are seen longer. Until the impacts by 2009, astronomers didn't know these small-size impacts could be observed. Debris and sizes, when observed with larger instruments help targeting the size of the impactor. As some previous models predicted around one collision of this kind a year and another by up to 100 such collisions, astronomers now believe they likely are closer to the high end of the scale. As Earth gets smacked by a 33-ft (10-meter) sized object about every 10 years on average, Jupiter likely gets hit with the same-sized object a few times each month. Impactors can vary from the one which hit Jupiter by July 2009 to a size 100,000 times less massive like the objects by June or August 2010, of a size 30 to 40 feet (8 to 13 meters) in diameter

A Periodicity in the Gravitational Perturbance By Large Planets in the Solar System?

click on the thumbnail above to a diagram of the respective positions of Uranus and Neptune in the solar system between 1980 and 2010

Another plausible factor for such an increase in activity of small impactors is that, lately, as far as the orbits of Uranus and Neptune are concerned, they are enduring a remarkable alignment in the solar system which occurs each 130 years only. Were are currently by the end of such a period as it would have begun by about 1980. As both those gas gianst are about in line at the extremities of the solar system, beyond Jupiter and Saturn, they likely could attract some objects in the Kuiper Belt, that zone of leftovers of the solar system's formation at the edge of it, beyond Pluto. Albeit the period tends to be over now, we might well keep being inside the time frame into which the disturbed objects keep roaming along their new orbits in the solar system! Saturn and Jupiter further, by 1990 and 1997 respectively came to add to the alignment between Uranus and Neptune! Further, a line may be drawn which links all of the hits mentioned, maybe hinting to a funneling trajectory of sort. If such a fact came to be confirmed, one legitimately should worry for our Earth as it would have no particular reason to be shielded from such objects during those periods! Earth seems the most at risk, when refered to the funneling trajectory, about September each year

An explanation, further, might well depend upon Jupiter self, as it would come however like a complementary explanation only to the one we described above. Astronomers recently discovered that Jupiter was able to -relatively frequently- capture into orbit passing comets. 5 such comets, until now, have been spotted like having had at least one complete orbit around Jupiter. That was the case, for example for 147P/Kushida-Muramatsu, which remained in an orbit around Jupiter between 1949 and 1961. Most of the comets which may be catched by the gravitational attraction of the gas giant however eventually escape before they complete one orbit around Jupiter. Those same astronomers too found that comets or asteroids may be shattered through the gravitational tides into which Jupiter takes part. That leads to that Shoemaker-Levy 9-style impacts might be more frequent on Jupiter than previously thought! This additional explanation, thus, might account for the sole case of the impact at Jupiter only and not for the potential series which might have occurred since a while

Asteroids and Not Comets Only Can Hit at Jupiter

Miscellaneous wavelengths views of the impact area when Jupiter was hit by a celestial object on July 19th, 2009. picture site 'Amateur Astronomy' based on a picture from a picture NASA/JPL-Caltech/IRTF/STScI/ESO/Gemini Observatory/AURA/A. Wesley

By early 2011, data from infrared telescopes enabled scientists to observe the warm atmospheric temperatures and unique chemical conditions associated with the impact debris at Jupiter on July 19th, 2009 as astronomers deduced from the signatures of gases and dark debris produced by the impact shockwaves that the impactor was more likely a rocky asteroid than an icy comet. Astronomers states that such impacts are showing that the outer solar system is a complex, violent and dynamic place, and that many surprises may be out there waiting for us. Such debris in 2009 were heavier or denser than debris from comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994. Before this collision, scientists had thought that the only objects that hit Jupiter were icy comets whose unstable orbits took them close enough to Jupiter to be shifted in by the giant planet's gravitational attraction. Those comets are known as Jupiter-family comets. Scientists thought Jupiter had already cleared most other objects, such as asteroids, from its sphere of influence. The data showed that the impact had warmed Jupiter's lower stratosphere by as much as 3 to 4 Kelvin at about 42 kilometers above its cloudtops. Plunging through Jupiter's atmosphere, the object created a channel of super-heated atmospheric gases and debris. An explosion deep below the clouds probably releasing at least around more than 5 gigatons of TNT then launched debris material back along the channel, above the cloud tops, to splash back down into the atmosphere, creating the aerosol particulates and warm temperatures observed in the infrared. The blowback dredged up ammonia gas and other gases from a lower part of the atmosphere known as the troposphere into a higher part of the atmosphere known as the stratosphere. The dark debris, the heated atmosphere and upwelling of ammonia were similar for this impact and Shoemaker-Levy but the debris plume in the case of the solid object didn't reach such high altitudes or didn't heat the high stratosphere as it contained signatures for hydrocarbons, silicates and silicas. A absence of carbon monoxide was also noted a other strong evidence for a water-depleted object A much weaker comet nucleus on a other hand could not have plunged that deep into Jupiter's atmosphere. Assuming that the impactor had a rock-like density of around 160 pounds per cubic foot (2.5 grams per cubic centimeter), scientists calculated a likely diameter of 700 to 1,600 feet (200 to 500 meters). A search in the catalog of known asteroids and comets have shown that some have very chaotic orbit and making several very close approaches to Jupiter in computer models, demonstrating that an asteroid could have hurtled into Jupiter. Scientists are still working to figure out what that frequency at Jupiter is, but asteroids of this size hit Earth about once every 100,000 years