Sydney, July 22: An Australian amateur astronomer told Wednesday of setting the stargazing world abuzz by snapping the moment a celestial object smashed into Jupiter. Computer programmer Anthony Wesley was doubly happy because the impact he photographed Sunday came on the 15th anniversary of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet, which slammed into Jupiter in 1994 – an event that represented the first observed collision of two celestial bodies in the solar system.
“It’s a dream come true for anyone who takes photographs of the planets and photographs of Jupiter to take a photograph of this type,” Wesley told the national broadcaster ABC from his home near Canberra. “There was pretty much widespread excitement as soon as everybody realized that another one of these impacts has happened.”
Wesley told the US space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that, from the evidence of his backyard telescope, the solar system’s biggest planet had again been hit by a speeding celestial object.
Scientists then pointed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s infrared telescope in Hawaii at the planet and detected signs it might have been struck by a comet.
Wesley said he knew immediately that he had witnessed something remarkable.
“I saw this dark mark that was left by this impact near Jupiter’s south pole,” he said. “Looking at that through my telescope and my video camera, it was pretty clear it wasn’t a normal shadow.”
While the photograph only shows a small blemish on the fifth planet from the sun, it was caused by a bit of space debris, a comet or an asteroid bigger than earth.
–Agencies