Kevin M. Gill/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSSNASA’s Juno spacecraft likely witnessed the moment an asteroid or comet slammed into Jupiter and disintegrated in its atmosphere, according to a team of researchers. The incident happened last year on Friday, 10 April 2020, when the Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft was studying the gas giant planet. “We suggest that this was a fireball produced by a 250 to 5,000-kilogram meteoroid entering Jupiter’s atmosphere,” they wrote in their paper describing the discovery. Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team and NASAWhile this was an intriguing event, though, Juno’s observation of it was “only a tiny snapshot in time,” says Giles. For example, even 15 years after its impact, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was still responsible for 95 percent of the water in Jupiter's stratosphere.

Source: Forbes February 16, 2021 18:16 UTC