VIDEO: Amateur astronomer captures the impact against Jupiter of an unknown space object

published:

September 16, 2021 1:45 GMT

Brazilian José Luis Pereira was observing the gas giant with his telescope when he suddenly recorded a brief flash of light near the planet’s equator.

With a simple Newtonian telescope, an amateur astronomer from Brazil managed to capture the moment when an unknown space object, possibly a small asteroid, Impacted against Jupiter.

On September 13, José Luis Pereira was making observations of our Solar System when he recorded a bright spark in the gas giant. “When the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars are in opposition, I try to take pictures on every night of clear skies. Especially of the planet Jupiter, my favorite,” the Brazilian told the portal Space.com.

Tonight, despite unfavorable conditions, Pereira persevered and compiled a series of 25 videos of Jupiter, with no time interruptions between them. Already in the beginning he had noticed the spark, But he paid no more attention.

It was the next day, after analyzing the data using a special program, that he alerted him that there was a high probability that the capture was an impact. He then sent the information to a specialist, Marc Delcroix, of the French Astronomical Society, who confirmed his suspicions.

In the video in question you can see how for a brief moment a white spot is formed near the equator of the planet. “It simply came to our notice then a very exciting time“Since I had been looking to record an event like this for many years,” Pereira said.

While the nature of the object that crashed into the gas giant is unclear at the moment, some astronomers believe it could be a meteorite. Astrophotographer Damian Peach also published a snapshot of Jupiter, captured an hour after being hit, and no evidence of any ‘scarring’ is evident, so he believes it may have been too small a rock to reach the deepest atmosphere.