The largest planet in our solar system is under attack. A series of stargazers have captured an asteroid colliding into Jupiter. While at the moment, it’s unknown what kind of damage is done one can’t help but think about the event taking place someday on our own planet Earth.
IRISHMAN SEES ASTEROID HIT JUPITER
John McKeon, an amateur astronomer, caught the event from his telescope in Swords, Ireland on March 17th. His video, a beautiful time-lapse, clearly shows something striking Jupiter. McKeon wasn’t intending to witness the event. He was busy recording the movement of the planets moons Io and Ganymede. As the luck of the Irish kicked in, Mckeon excitedly witnesses the impact, which many seem to believe was an asteroid. The details on the crash aren’t quite known but an expert from NASA’s Center for Near-EArth Object Studies says an asteroid is simply the most likely. Why? Well, because there are more of them.
DEEP IMPACT IS A SCARY REALITY
Asteroid impacts are usually something curated from the minds of Hollywood, but this case with Jupiter shows that impacts in the solar system are all too real. The biggest planet in our solar system is at a slight disadvantage due to it’s seized, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of one ever hitting Earth. Dating back to 1994 videos of objects slamming into Jupiter is all too common. Before this latest recording, Dan Peterson of Racine, Wisconsin caught a flash on the planet and before him, a handful of other measures have been monitoring the solar system. With the improvement of better instruments, more amateur astronomers are able to monitor Jupiter, giving us stunning footage. Hopefully, that means more eyes on the sky will be spotting asteroids coming in Earths vicinity.
EARTH EXPECTING CLOSE CALL FROM ASTEROIDS
The latest observations show that a 100-foot-wide (30 meters) asteroid is approaching earth. 2013 TX68 came within about 3 million miles of Earth’s surface. Now, that is fairly far off and we have nothing to fear for the time being. The space rock very well may make another pass at us in the coming years but the good news is that our atmosphere will likely whittle that down significantly but could still cause some damage. Still, we are hardly invincible to the dangers of space. Let’s just hope NASA or SpaceX will have us covered.
