Something Weird Got Smacked Into Jupiter :
An amateur astronomer Ethan Chapel has captured a photograph that shows an asteroid slamming into Jupiter on Wednesday(August 7).
astronomers are still waiting to see whether anyone else spotted the sudden flash, which was located over the planet's South Equatorial Belt.There's plenty of precedent for such impacts at Jupiter: The planet's massive gravity tugs asteroids and other space debris toward itself. One group of astronomers has estimated an object 16.5 feet to 65 feet (5 to 20 meters) across slams into the planet between one and five times a month.
Jupiter's most famous bruise came from the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994.
"The comet fragmented and then, over the course of two years, about 20 different chunks fell into the gas giant's banded clouds, leaving dark scars in the clouds," according to a report.
This impact is unlikely to leave such scars, according to astronomer Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute on Twitter, who spearheaded Hubble Space Telescope observations of Shoemaker-Levy 9's impact.
It's unclear if what struck Jupiter's SEB was a Trojan gone rogue or just another asteroid in the cosmos. A study from 2013 estimated that the King of Planets experience 12−60 small impacts per year, with larger asteroids hitting the planet every few years. While some believe that the planet acts as a sort of vacuum cleaner for asteroids in the solar system, other scientists warn that it could just as easily fling an asteroid towards the Earth.
NASA is planning on studying the Trojans in 2021. It's plan to do so has made for one of the Agency's complex flight plans in history.
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