An asteroid, with the power of a nuclear bomb, rammed directly into Jupiter last month. There were two videos released that documented this finding, one from an astronomer in Austria and one from an astronomer in Ireland. Although the nuclear bomb-like asteroid could only be seen faintly in both videos, it was indeed there. For further proof that this was indeed an asteroid, a member of NASA had a chance to explain.
NASA SAYS IT WAS A ‘NUCLEAR’ ASTEROID THAT RAMMED INTO JUPITER
Paul Chodas, who manages the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA, noted how to them it indeed looked like an asteroid that struck Jupiter. Funnily enough, Chodas said that he found out about the discovery just like the rest of the world did, through the two videos that were previously alluded to. For further research, Chodas mentions how NASA scientists can study the videos to make estimations about the size of the nuclear bomb-like asteroid. For now, Chodas also notes, they have not found any indication of any scars caused by the nuclear bomb-like attack. However, if this happened to be the case it wouldn’t be the first time for Jupiter.
THE 2009 JUPITER IMPACT EVENT
Way back in 2009, it was discovered that a huge impact took place on Jupiter. It was so large, covering around 190 million square kilometers, that it actually caused a black spot in the planet’s atmosphere. The amateur astronomer who discovered this nuclear bomb-like impact was Anthony Wesley. On the day he discovered it, Wesley was at his home observatory looking through his telescope. He noted that he saw a vaguely dark spot, but only thought it was a normal dark polar storm. This was until he started to rotate his telescope further, and then he noticed it was black on all channels. Jupiter is no stranger to receiving nuclear bomb-like attacks, that is for sure.
