Jupiter was hit by an asteroid yesterday and some guy caught it on webcam!

The moment Jupiter was HIT by a giant asteroid YESTERDAY - and humanity's only record was taken by a faithful webcam in the dead of night | Mail Online

The moment Jupiter was HIT by a giant asteroid yesterday - and humanity's only record was taken by a faithful webcam in the dead of night

• Jupiter was hit during the day yesterday - but it apparently went unobserved from Earth
• ...except for one astronomer, Dan Petersen, who saw the flash with his own eyes
• When Petersen reported the sighting on a web forum, amateur astronomer George Hall checked his overnight footage

This is the moment Jupiter was struck by a mighty meteorite yesterday - and our only record of it is this image, captured by a lone webcam chugging away in the early hours of the morning.

As the people of Earth carried out their lives unawares, it seems our gas giant neighbour took a forceful blow to the side at about 11.35am GMT yesterday.
Amateur astronomer George Hall, from Dallas, captured the flash on video at 5:35am CET - but he only went to check his footage after hearing online that another astronomer, watching the planet with his own eyes, saw the huge explosion bloom out of Jupiter in the blink of an eye.




Now astronomers are waiting for the planet to swing back round - to see if Jupiter has been scarred by the impact.
If it has, a black smudge is likely to appear on the 'clouds' of the planet, a distinctive mark to go alongside the Red Spot - Jupiter's giant storm.
JUPITER: SAVIOUR OF EARTH


Jupiter has been known as the 'cosmic vacuum cleaner' of the solar system.
The planet's mass and large orbit sweeps up the scattered meteors that are relics from the early days of our solar system formation, with the planet either 'taking the bullet' itself, or deflecting orbits away from the inner planets.


Many astronomers believe life would not have got started on Earth with Jupiter's influence - and before our solar system settled down, Earth was frequently bombarded with giant impacts.


Jupiter has taken many a hit from the rocks that maraude their way through the solar system - remnants from the early days of the solar system when rocks would co-coalesce to form our planets.

Asteroid impacts were reported in 2009 and 2010 - and in 1994, the string of comets known as Shoemaker-Levy ploughed into the planet, offering us an eerie glimpse of what happens in during such colossal impacts.

George Hall, who blogs about his images, who went back through the footage recorded by his telescope overnight to find the impact, said: It's kind of a scary proposition to see how often Jupiter gets hit.'


His image was captured by a 12-inch Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a Point Grey Flea3 video camera attached to capture imagery for a composite picture of Jupiter.
He said: 'Jupiter happens to be ideally positioned at about 6 o'clock in the morning - it's right overhead.'


The flare lasted just two seconds - and Halls' equipment happened to capture the shot at exactly the right moment for the above image.