Neue grosse Ereignisse / Spuren unuebersehbar: Rep.#10, 19.7., 1:30 CST ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Die "grosse Story" gestern war sicherlich die bisher bei weitem groesste und hellste Plume, die sich auf dem Jupiter niedergelassen hat: der Impakt G, der am fruehen Morgen stattfand und wegen der ungebrochen dichten Be- woelkung ohnehin nicht zu sehen gewesen waere. So sahen ihn die anderen: SPIREX detected a fragment G impact site shortly after expected impact, at 07:41 UT, significantly brighter and more persistant than any previous impacts. Details are not yet available as the South Pole communications have only been open for a few minutes. Impact G does, however, appear to be big, and extremely long lived. It has been bright for over thirty minutes. The words of Hien Nguyen, at the South Pole, were: "My God, it was extremely bright!" SPIREX will continue to monitor further impacts. Report from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii: The summit here in Hawaii is plagued by heavy fog. All telescopes are closed. At 21:27 HST, a minute or so before the expected impact, the IRTF noticed a clearing, and we opened up. At 21:39 we obtained our first frame of Jupiter, in regular K-band: a truly remarkable (saturated) plume was visible well above the limb. We started a sequence of observations at 3.4 micron: A spot was visible in our first frame, 21:40 (HST), which brightened to truly remarkable levels by 21:50, after which it decreased in intensity. At the same time the fog was coming in, and we were closing up again; whether we were seeing a true decrease in the spot's intensity, or whether the decrease is due to increasing cloud coverage above the telescope is not yet known. It is raining right now; we don't expect to get any more frames tonight. The impacts of S-L 9 fragments G2 and G1 were detected at 7:33 and 7:40 UT, respectively with the CASPIR infrared camera on the ANU 2.3 m telescope, and the InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer, IRIS, on the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, Coonabarabran, Australia. These impacts occurred just as the impact sites of fragments C and A reached the evening limb of Jupiter. A strong radio burst from Jupiter was detected by a decameter radio receiver 26\pm0.5MHz at Xinxiang, China from 6h57m to 7h07m on July 18 (UT). The signal was enhanced 40dBmW over the background emission (-108dBmW) of Jupiter. The signal arrived 31 minutes earlier than the predicted impact time of fragment G of SL9. We suppose that such a strong burst is due to the cyclotron emission when fragment G transpassed the magnetosphere of Jupiter which has a larger extention than the Jupiter atmosphere. The Comet-Jupiter Impact Team of Beijing Astronomical Observatory The Hubble Space Telescope Jupiter Imaging Team reports successful observations of the G plume over the limb of Jupiter. Excellent images of the G site on the disk were obtained about 1.5 hours later. Observers should be aware that the D impact site is about 7 degrees to the west of the G impact site; be careful to avoid confusion (i.e., G did *NOT* appear to be split or double). Heidi Hammel, on behalf of the Team The SPIREX team has reduced preliminary data immediately after the fragment G impact site appeared at 07:41 UT, imaged at 2.36 microns. We have confirmation that this one was MANY times bigger than all previous events. The words of Hien Nguyen, at the South Pole, were: "My God, it was extremely bright!" This could be an understatement. Andere Ergebnisse: LINE IDENTIFICATIONS FOR FRAGMENT C IMPACT AT 3.5 MICRONS Identification of most of the emission lines in the UKIRT CGS4 echelle spectra of Jupiter obtained last night at the location of the Fragment C impact (approximately 15 minutes after impact) now have been made. The spectra cover the range 3.53-3.56um (2809 - 2832 cm-1). The results are as follows: 1. Six transitions of CH2 and six of OH+ are identified. 2. At least six lines remain unidentified. However, these could also be due to CH2, because the line list for this molecule is incomplete. 3. The H3+ lines present prior to impact were overwhelmed by the strong emission; even the strongest H3+ line is several times weaker than the weakest lines clearly detected in the impact spectrum. The tentative suggestion in our last message that one of the new lines was a hot band transition of H3+ is not correct 4. Emission by CH4 in this spectral region is ruled out. The IRTF images of the fragment C impact strongly suggest that this impact did not penetrate down to levels where water is present in Jupiter. Therefore, the identification of OH+ is a strong indication that the impactor itself contained water; this would suggest that SL9 was a comet and not an asteroid. HST has imaged impact sites A - E and determined their longitudes. These longitudes are compared to the predicted longitudes circulated by Chodas and Yeomans in their 16 July message (last astrometric data in their solutions 1994 July 15.0). The observed longitudes are larger (farther west) than the predicted longitudes, but not by the same amount: Fragment Obs. lon. Pred. lon. Delay Time A 186.5 178 14.1 20:14 B 76.5 70 10.8 3:05 C 225.5 218 12.4 7:15 D 37.5 30 12.4 11:59 E 153.0 150 5.0 15:11 The uncertainty of the observed longitudes is about 1.5 degrees. The average of the delay is about 10.9 minutes, with an uncertainty of about 2 minutes. The spread in the time delay is consistent with the uncertainty quoted by Chodas and Yeomans, but there appears to be a systematic offset (delay) in the observed impacts relative to the predictions. HST observed Fragment A in sunlight, about 1000 km above the limb, at 20:18. The fragment was not seen in an earlier image at 20:15. Fragment E was seen above the limb at 15:19, but that was the first image of a sequence. With better estimates of the appearance of the plume from other observers, we can get a crude estimate of the vertical velocity. Here in Rome (where our e-mail link had been down all weekend so we were not able to read or report until today) we observed Europa during the A event last Saturday with Hubbard's occultation system on an ancient 24 inch cassegrain at the Specola Vaticana. The data are EXRTREMELY noisy (bad scattered light problems from the Moon) but we got a hint of an event in the red channel around 20:02 to 20:05 or so UT, and nothing like it later (up to 20:15). I'm not sure I believe it, but it might be interesting. --Guy Consolmagno Gary Menard Und dann kam der Impakt H: The impact of fragment H has been observed from the 3.5 and 2.2 meter telescope at Calar Alto. The initial brightening was observed at UT 19:31 with a 2.3 micron filter on the 3.5m telescope and with a 3.1 micron filter on the 2.2 meter telescope. The spot increased to a maximum brightness over about 10 minutes. We are currently taking grism spectra of the new impact site over the K band (2.0 - 2.4) at a resolution of 400. Impact sites D and G are still visible to the west of the impact H plume. Fantastic H impact seen at 10 microns with the CAMIRAS camera mounted on the Nordic Optical Telescope at 19 39 UT. Much brighter than impact A and E previously seen. H-impact first detected at limb at 19:33 UT at 9.1-10.4 micron (ESO 3.6-metre + TIMMI). At 20:06 extremely bright, more than 20 times brighter than entire Jupiter disk at this wavelength. Brightness temperature shows increase of about 40 K. Impact G still well visible at centre of disk at this wavelength. The observers at the ESO 3.6-metre + TIMMI ( Tim Livengood, Ulli Kauefl, Benoit Mosser, Marc Sauvage) estimate that at 10 micron, the intensity of the H-plume was about 50 times that of the entire disk of Jupiter at approx. 19:45 UT. It was seen without subtraction of sky signal, indicating a temperature in excess of 300 K. SPIREX observed the fragment H impact site appearing over the limb at 19:38 UT, imaged at 2.36 and 2.22 microns. The peak brightness of the fragment H site appears to be smaller than the G impact, but still significantly larger than all other previous impacts. Hier war es weiterhin bewoelkt, und die Wetterkarte verheisst zumindestens fuer heute auch nichts Gutes. Gleichwohl gewahrte J.Spencer gegen 20:00 eine *winzige* Wolkenluecke und 'hielt einfach drauf' mit dem 4-m-Tele- skop - Ergebnis war ein Dreivierteljupiter (zum Zentrieren reichte die Zeit schon nicht mehr), der jede Menge Plumes zeigt. Derweil geht die Auswertung der Spektren des 1.5-m-Teleskops munter weiter: We obtained good 5 micron spectra of the fragment D with the IRS on the CTIO 1.5 m telescope around UT 23:15 on July 17. We could easily identify CH3D, CO, GeH4. The continuum intensity of the impact place was more than 10 times of other areas of Jupiter. Nevertheless, the overall structure of the absorption features of the impact area is quite similar to those of the undisturbed areas. We found several unidentified lines (probably known molecular lines) which are now under investigation. Sang Kim, Christophe Dumas, Jay Elias, Richard Elston Nun ein Bericht ueber eine NASA-Sonder-PK zu HUBBLE-Beobachtungen des G-Events from huette@andrior.harvard.edu Tue Jul 19 01:41:16 1994: [...] [NASA Select live 18.7. 4 p.m. EDT] Das HST-Bild von "G" sieht total irre aus: Ein schwarzer Fleck, umgeben von einem Schwarzen Ring, dann zur Seite versetzt etwas, das Heidi H. "smudge" nannte, einseitig ein verwaschenes schwarzes Etwas, das speichenartige Struktur zeigt. Die Speichen sind nicht auf die Ringmitte konzentriert, sondern auf den innersten schwarzen Fleck, der auch zum Rand versetzt ist. Im Methanband ist alles wieder genau andersherum. Heidis Spontaninterpretation: Der Ring liegt konzentrisch zum Einschlag, danach stieg der Feuerball in einem Winkel auf, und die Speichen und der 2. Fleck merkieren die "Austrittstelle". Instant Science. Es gibt auch ein Bild mit dem "plume" "uber dem Juppi-Rand, ca. 2200 km hoch, d.i. das Doppelte von Impakt A. Das ist wieder so eine Bildsequez von Methan nach kuerzeren Wellenlaengen, wo man in der Zeitlichen Reihenfolge sieht, wie die Wolke immer flacher und laenger wird. Der Impakt G habe 25x die Energie von A gehabt, sagte Gene Shoemaker, und er habe sich erst verrechnet, aber die totale Energie seien 6 million megatons TNT gewesen. Der Ring werde von manchen Leute als eine atmosph"arische Welle interpretiert, aber das wisse man erst, wenn man sieht, ob er sich mit der Zeit ausdehnt. Das HST-Bild entstand ca. 1 1/2 h nach Impakt, das andere mit dem Plume "uber dem Rand (das erste) aber wahrscheinlich keine 5 Minuten nach dem Impakt. Besonders freuen sich alle auf die Einschlaege von Q,R und S, die alle die etwa gleiche Laenge treffen - Heidi woertlich: "This will be one heck of a mess, we're really looking forward to it." Die unumgaengliche Frage nach der Gr"osse dieses Fragments beantwortete Shoemaker mit "3 km" - das wuerde genau zu Weavers Modellen passen. Ein Bild, so hiess es, haetten sie noch, dass sie nicht zeigen koennten, das wuerde zeigen, dass dieses schwarze Zeug sehr duenn verteilt sei - denn man saehe die Baender *durch das Material hindurch* darunter. Die meisten Journalistenfragen waren ziemlich doof (Ein besonders unwissender Mensch fragte: "Will anything be left of Jupiter at all when all this is over - and if it happened in L.A., would there be anything left of that city? " Der Mann hatte echt die richtige Perspektive.... alles im Phillips Auditorium st"ohnte laut. Shoemaker sagte uebrigens, der Einschlagskrater auf der Erde wuerde ca. 60 km gross sein - beachtlich, aber der Saurierkiller war es nicht. Und dann war da die Flut von visuellen Beobachtungen des G-Treffers: July 18: Another evening's visual observation from Cambridge with 30-cm refractor, starting before sunset using yellow and polaroid filters. Impact site G was very impressive - a large very dark spot, with two components, the Sp. one being a fairly dark 'coma' and the Nf. one being exactly like a satellite shadow. The whole complex transited from 19.51 to 20.19 UT (L2 = 297-314), and the Nf. black spot at 20.13 (L2 = 311). (Chodas prediction was L2 = 314.) We saw no sign of any fireball from H (in daylight), but from 20.28 onwards, a dark spot emerged from the terminator. It was almost as large as site G but not as dark (intensity between SEB and NEB). It was in transit at about 22.13 UT, L2 = 23 (in bad seeing). (Chodas prediction was L2 = 26.) There was NO dark spot at presumptive site B (predicted L2 = 360). As impact B was the one that failed to produce a fireball, can we infer that the dark stuff comes from below the clouds, not from the comet? The above transits were by John Rogers but Jonathan Shanklin and James Lancashire also observed all these features and made similar timings. [dies aus dem SL9-Exploder, folgende Auswahl aus sci.astro] Find a telescope! Any telescope! The impact site tonight was EASILY visible in small amateur telescopes. Through a 10" Meade from downtown Chicago it was a small dark spot -rather like a Galilean satellite shadow but a little lighter and fuzzier. Also, a brighter area partly encircling and trailing the spot. MOST impressive and more impacts yet to come! Frank E. Reed Do you mean 7/18? If so, I bet I saw the same thing this (Sunday) evening, several times between about 3:00 and 3:45 UT, in an 8" SCT at 133x. At its best, the feature resembled a satellite's shadow -- small sharp dark dot, about 2/3 of the way (in projection) from the equator to the S pole. It moved steadily from west to east, and hadn't quite reached the meridian at last sight. Another person looking through my scope also thought she saw it. Whee! I really didn't expect to be able to detect anything from this event. This seems about the right location for the F fragment's impact, which was predicted around 0:30 UT this evening. (A bunch of us watched on July 16-17, but the seeing was awful. Tonight the atmosphere was much steadier.) Stuart Levy, Geometry Center, University of Minnesota Watched a clearly visible dark spot for several hours from my rooftop in downtown Chicago. VERY impressive. There also seems to be a brighter area partially encircling the trailing edge. The spot looks to be in just about the right place for fragment F -must've been bigger than earlier estimated to punch a hole like that. Frank E. Reed Clockwork Software At 5.51 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, Zac Pujic, Greg Bock and Peter Marples of the Southern Astronomical Society in Queensland, Australia saw a plume projecting frmo the southern hemisphere of Jupiter, just south of the southern temperate belt. It persisted for about 5-10 minutes after which time it was no longer visible. Most fantastic however is the fact that at about 6.30 pm AEST, all three of us, including Gregg Thompson (authoer of the supernova search charts) have now been able to see a large indentation in the western (IAU convention) side of Jupiter. The indentation is about as large as the Great Red Spot (which is not visible at this time). It looks as though someone hit jupiter. At a later time, about 6.40, a black spot, about as large as the white oval FA, came into view in the southern hemisphere at approximately the same latitude as the south south temperate belt. These observations have been confirmend by at least six people and constitute amongst the first visual observations of a plume and immediate post-impact cloud structure on Jupiter. Three dark features were observed visually tonight using a 36 cm (f/11) Schmidt- Cassegrain Telescope. The first crossed the central meridian of Jupiter at 3:50 UT, July 18, 1994 and appeared almost like a Galilean moon shadow (roughly 6000 km in diameter). There was an irregular feature to the=20 south-preceding edge of this dark spot. Perhaps the dark spot and irregular feature were the impact sites of F and/or E. The second feature crossed the central meridian at 4:38 UT, July 18, 1994 and appeared gray (about 9000 km in diameter). This one may have been the impact site of fragment A. The third feature was similar to the second and was probably the impact site of fragment C. The transit time of this feature could not be measured accurately but was roughly 5:40 UT, July 18, 1994. Dan Bruton Richard Schumde Texas A&M Observatory The impact site of fragment G of SL9 is now clearly in view at 7.03 pm AEST (9.03 UT) and appears as a very large black spot about 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the GRS. Its appearance is exactly the same as the black spot mentioned in the novel 2010 by Arthur C. Clarke. Zac Pujic observing at Helensvale, 300mm and 350mm at 200X. At 08:25 UT, could see a large dark depression on following limb developing. Absolutely unbelievable..!! Confirmed by G. Thompson at Springwood Obs., Z. Pujic at Kingston. (and my wife, Kath) Peter Marples Southern Astronomical Society Queensland, Aust. After a half-dozen impacts, the changes on Jupiter are *very* obvious. A neighbour and I observed the planet between 3:30 and 6:00 UT, the time window accessible from Santa Barbara. He uses an 8" Orion Dobsonian and I have a 20" Dob that I stop down to a little over 8" to improve the seeing. I worked at 330X and 360X. We immediately saw two black spots between the south temperate belt and the south pole. They look like satellite shadows, only not as dark and perhaps slightly elliptical. The leading spot was the darker of the two and was near the meridian at 3:30 UT July 18. I estimated the latitude at about 60 degrees S. I have never seen anything like this; it is very clear that something unusual is happening. Around 4:35 UT a third black spot began to emerge from the limb, at a higher latitude than the other two. It was about as dark as the second spot. My sketch shows it foreshortened by perspective (long axis parallel to the limb). I also noticed a darkening of the south temperate belt in front of the new spot. --Pierre Asselin, Santa Barbara, California Yet another black spot sighting: First seen at a little before 3:00 UT July 18 (10 pm CDT July 17). At first I thought I was seeing the equivalent of Martian canals, as a result of viewing too many GIFs of the A impact the night before. However, about 30 min. later, the spot rotated far enough around to be plainly visible and distinct. It was about the size of a Galilean satellite shadow, but there are no Galilean satellite shadow passages on July 18...This should be the F impact remnant. Observed fragment G effects from about 18.30 EST (08.30 UT) from back porch with 1250mm f.l. f/10 SCT (C5) at about 60x and 120x. Clearly resolved a large 'hole' in the jupiter image below Southern/Southern bands, progressing a little slower than other features. As commented by others, it was like the changes illustrated in '2001-The Space Odyssey' when Jupiter began to transform. The hole was very clearly delineated from the face of Jupiter. Sorry I missed the impact, which was observed visually by others (notably in Queensland, Australia). The hole was about half to one-third the diameter of the GRS, so it was probably a larger fragment that item A. Graham Davies Northern Districts Society for Amateur Astronomers Sydney, NSW The impact site of fragment G was widely observed along the east coast of Australia. The weather in Queensland was superb. I have managed to obtain very good CM transit timings of the fragment G impact. The impact site itself is a spot about 3 arcseconds in diameter and is extremely dark. This is surrounded by a=20 white ring, and surrounding this white ring is a dark ring. The centre of the whole complex lies at longitude 311.9 system II degrees. I have made a very good drawing of this feature when near the CM and will uuencode it onto sci.astro soon. Zac Pujic Last night, around 04:20 UT (July 18), I observed two dark spots at high (roughly 45-50 degrees) southern latitudes. The preceding spot was ink black, and elongated north-south. The following spot was brownish, larger, and more diffuse. The following spot transited at 04:45 (plus-minus five minutes). Anyone know where to find a table of System II longitudes for 0 h UT? The observations were made with an 11 inch (28 cm) SCT. Bill Hi, Here in Norway we observed the G-spot on Jupiter at 19.45 UT with a Celestron 8 (most easily spotted using a yellow filter). The spot crossed the central meridian at 20.20 UT. Since then a group of amateurs at Sollihoegda a bit outside Oslo reported visual observation of the impact aftermath of H at 21.00 UT, this detection was done with a 10 inch telescope. There are some indications that H have been observed also with the Celestron 8, but the seeing started to get so bad that the detections are uncertain. If you have a 8 inch or more, you should go out and observe, we had poor conditions here in Norway (the sun goes down almost together with Jupiter), so anyone with better conditions will probably have a fair chance to see something. Jarle. In Norwegen und England sieht man die Effekte mit Leichtigkeit,und hier... Hier ein SKY & TELESCOPE'S NEWS BULLETIN -- JULY 18, 1994 COMET SPECIAL It's bigger than we ever hoped. The impacts of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 are creating more fireworks on Jupiter than anyone expected. Infrared telescopes around the world have been imaging stupendous fireballs looming up over Jupiter's limb. And black markings at some of the impact sites are easily visible in amateur telescopes. On Sunday night many U.S. amateurs watched the growing black spot from Impact A creep around Jupiter, followed by the smaller black spot from Impact C trailing about 40 degrees behind. That was just the warmup. On Monday amateurs around the world reported the huge black marks of G and H in telescopes as small as 2.4 or 3 inches aperture. The Hubble Space Telescope showed them in stunning, complex detail. The impact zone is in Jupiter's far southern latitudes, normally a dull area, making them easy to recognize. The Hubble Space Telescope team has announced Jovian longitudes for A through E. These positions suggest the impacts themselves came 5 to 14 minutes late. Based on that, here are new times for the remaining impacts. These include the 43 minutes of light time between Jupiter and Earth and are given in Pacific Daylight Time. [...] Vier chilenische Fernsehteams waren heute um 11:00 zum Cerro gekommen, mehrere Funkleute und Zeitungsreporter. Die Pressekonferenz, moderiert von M. Hamuy, wurde weitgehend von J. Spencer bestritten, der dann auch ausgiebig in den Abendnachrichten zu Wort kam. Die Fragen der Chilenen waren durchweg intelligenter als die der Anrufer vom deutschen Radio, und der heutige "Mercurio" ist auch voll von (gut reproduzierten) Bildern der ersten Stunden. Auch an der Konsole des 4-m-Teleskops und am Teleskop selbst (das man so mal aus ungewohnter Perspektive besichtigen konnte, inkl. schoenen Blicks von oben auf die anderen) gab es Interviews und Fototermine. Ab 21:00 (Hauptnachrichtenzeit hier) wartete man gespannt auf das Ergebnis (mit 2 Programmen auf 2 Bildschirmen gleichzeitig), aber erstmal gab es nicht enden wollende Berichte ueber Brasilien einen Tag nach der WM. Dann kamen die Beitraege aber doch, und die meisten Herren fuehlten sich wohl richtig zitiert (hier wird generell untertitelt). Sarkastisches Gelaechter loeste bei beiden Berichten der sorgenvolle Hin- weis der Reporter auf das "nublado" Wetter am Cerro aus... Der heutige Tag soll (mal wieder sowieso unbeobachtbar) den Absturz K bringen (der einzige, bei dem ein Jupitermond im DUNKELN 'angeblitzt' wird und doch zu sehen ist - in Neuseeland), aber abends einen gut sicht- baren um den Sonnenuntergang. Wenn jetzt bloss diese &*^&% Kaltfront...