New earth size hole in Jupiter discovered

[pzz76077]

Discovered by an amateur no less, makes you wonder what all of the space angencies and publicly funded telescope installations around the world do all day!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...asteroid-crash


PZZ

[gingerjedi]

"My God, it's full of stars".

[gordonbrown]

That's not a hole. I invested it.

[VectraMan]

First evidence of swine flu spreading interplanetary?

[eliquant]

That's not a hole. I invested it.

lol

[RichardCranium]

Discovered by an amateur no less, makes you wonder what all of the space agencies and publicly funded telescope installations around the world do all day!

Typically, look at very small parts of the sky at very high resolution. Strangely, they're not actually paid to sit looking out of the window all night!

Amateurs look at larger areas.

Astronomy is one of the sciences where many of the discoveries can be, and are, still done by amateurs.

[pzz76077]

Typically, look at very small parts of the sky at very high resolution. Strangely, they're not actually paid to sit looking out of the window all night!

Amateurs look at larger areas.

Astronomy is one of the sciences where many of the discoveries can be, and are, still done by amateurs.

I would of thought that if something the size of the earth crashes into our solar system, it would raise alarm bells somewhere!

I thought that the US had some kind of early monitoring service that that would detect things of this nature that has potential to threaten the solar system.

Suddenly, the universe feels a dangerous place where anything could happen!

PZZ

[EternalOptimist]

Astronomy is one of the sciences where many of the discoveries can be, and are, still done by amateurs.

absolutely. Last week I gently fried some cheese slices, when they were bubbling I tipped in half bag of mushrooms - bliss.


sorry, thought you said gastronomy

[RichardCranium]

I would of thought that if something the size of the earth crashes into our solar system, it would raise alarm bells somewhere!

It wasn't. It merely heated up an Earth-sized bit of Jupiter's atmosphere.

There are no alarm bells installed on Jupiter. Yet. However, I suspect Her Majesty's Gov have security cameras, but pointing at the local populace, not the sky.

I thought that the US had some kind of early monitoring service that that would detect things of this nature that has potential to threaten the solar system.

Nope. There are a number of pipe dreams, that's all. Nothing that actually works.

They're looking for very small pieces of black material against a black background that emit virtually no radiation but travel incredibly fast. Squillions of them. And the dangerous ones are probably outside Pluto's orbit most of the time.

Suddenly, the universe feels a dangerous place where anything could happen!

Indeed it is. The greatest miracle of all is life. How this planet in this solar system managed to maintain a stable enough environment in its bit of space for evolution to occur is beyond my comprehension.

Gamma blasts, meteorites, inter-stellar material, supernovae and all manner of other reasons could have wiped life out utterly in the past few hundred million years. Or done enough damage to knock us back into single-cell life and so reset the clock.

We really do need to be colonising other worlds as a prelude to spreading out of this solar system.

[expat]

I would of thought that if something the size of the earth crashes into our solar system, it would raise alarm bells somewhere!

I thought that the US had some kind of early monitoring service that that would detect things of this nature that has potential to threaten the solar system.

Suddenly, the universe feels a dangerous place where anything could happen!

PZZ

It is, and we don't have tabs on very much of it. AIUI the US monitors large objects that may threaten Earth, not the entire solar system. There is no reason why something the size of the earth crashing into some other part of the solar system should raise alarm bells, even if we saw it coming, which we propbably wouldn't.

I would have thought.