Mysterious Flash on Jupiter Left No Debris Cloud

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A closer look at Jupiter reveals a faint imprint where the giant meteor touched its surface three days before. Image credits: NASA, ESA, M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), H.B. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), A.A. Simon-Miller (Goddard Space Flight Center), and the Jupiter Impact Science Team.

Detailed observations made by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found an answer to the flash of light seen June 3 on Jupiter. It came from a giant meteor burning up high above Jupiter’s cloud tops. The space visitor did not plunge deep enough into the atmosphere to explode and leave behind any telltale cloud of debris, as seen in previous Jupiter collisions.

Astronomers around the world knew that something must have hit the giant planet to unleash a flash of energy bright enough to be seen 400 million miles away. But they didn’t know how deeply it penetrated into the atmosphere. There have been ongoing searches for the “black-eye” pattern of a deep direct hit.

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