Closeup of New Dark Spot on Jupiter as seen by HST

Talk about a target of opportunity!  The venerable Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been in the middle of recommissioning after the successful refurbishing mission.  Not to miss the potentially new science in the drama unfolding on Jupiter after the recent impact, Space Telescope Science Institute director Matt Mountain allocated discretionary time to a team of astronomers led by Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

The Hubble picture, taken on 23 July, is the sharpest visible-light picture taken of the feature and is Hubble’s first science observation following its repair and upgrade in May. Observations were taken with Hubble’s new camera, the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

Hubble’s view shows a lumpiness in the debris plume left behind by the impact. This is caused by turbulence in Jupiter’s atmosphere. For scale, the spot as seen in this image is about twice the length of the whole of Europe. The object that did the nasty deed to Jupiter was probably about the size of several football fields, and the force of the explosion was thousands of times more powerful than whatever it was that created the Tunguska incident in June 1908.  That’s pretty darned powerful!  For more information about the HST images, visit here. You’ll find more images and interviews with the scientists involved.