Many suspect that Jupiter plays a role in protecting the inner planets from asteroid impacts and keeping comets and asteroids away from us.
She wrote that an amateur astronomer was able to capture a bright flash on Jupiter IFLScience. According to experts, the observation indicates that a so far unknown object may have collided with the gas giant, but it is also possible that it did not reach its surface and disintegrated in the atmosphere.
Jupiter is so massive that it technically does not orbit the sun. With such gravitational pull, one would expect to encounter asteroids on a regular basis. And it’s true: according to the 2013 model, the planet is hit by 12-60 objects with a diameter of 5-20 meters every year. According to another study, objects with a diameter of more than one and a half kilometers strike the planet only once every 6,000 years.
However, actual recording of such effects is rare. While preparing the aforementioned study, amateur astronomers recorded three flashes on the planet, which the research team determined to be asteroids. It made an impact Kunihiko Suzuki Recorded by an amateur astronomer on November 15, it is one of the few recorded events on the planet.
Studying the light curves of such impacts can tell you how much energy an object released, and can therefore also infer what object you hit. Many suspect that Jupiter plays a role in protecting the inner planets from asteroid impacts and keeping comets and asteroids away from us. So it’s possible we’re talking about something bigger.
