spacetoday.net: Impact scar spotted on Jupiter atmosphere

Impact scar spotted on Jupiter atmosphere

Posted: Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 2:32 PM ET (1832 GMT)
Jupiter impact scar, July 2009 (NASA/JPL)

Exactly fifteen years after Jupiter was pummeled by a series of impact by comet fragments, another object apparently struck the planet and left behind a mark the size of the Earth. A dark "scar" was first spotted Sunday by an Australian amateur astronomer and later confirmed by other observatories, including NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii. What caused the appearance of the dark spot, located in the southern polar regions of Jupiter's atmosphere, isn't clear, but the spot resembles those created when fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 struck Jupiter in July 1994.