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Something Big Just Slammed Into Jupiter

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Geekz Snow
Something Big Just Slammed Into Jupiter

On Wednesday, amateur astronomer Ethan Chappel was on the lookout for Perseid meteors, reports ScienceAlert.

Later, after feeding the data into a software program designed to detect impact flashes, Chappel was alerted to the event.

Looking at the footage, Chappel saw a brief but discernible flash along the western portion of Jupiter’s Southern Equatorial Belt, or SEB.

Later that day, Chappel announced his discovery in a tweet: “Imaged Jupiter tonight.

Looks awfully like an impact flash in the SEB.” Chappel released a sharper version of the impact on Thursday, along with a colourised view of the apparent impact.

The impact still needs to be confirmed by other astronomers, but it certainly bears the hallmarks of a meteor strike, and not something that might be produced by Jupiter’s lightning flashes or auroras.

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