back to article Hubble snaps fall-out from Jupiter impact

The Hubble Space Telescope has turned its new Wide Field Camera 3 on the aftermath of the 19 July collision between the gas giant and an unidentified object: Hubble image of the collision aftermath, taken on 23 July. Pic: NASA NASA describes the image as the "sharpest visible-light picture yet" of the atmospheric debris …

COMMENTS

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  1. Andus McCoatover
    Alien

    Trip to Jupiter urgently required!

    Toliet paper evidently needed, judging from the piccie, obviously. And a change of undies. Giant sized.

    (Did the planet pop to Mahatma's curryhouse Saturday night for a chicken vindaloo and a few Guinness? Looks like it pebbledashed its moons.)

    amanfrommars icon, 'natch. He'll get there quicker.

  2. this

    Re: Proper Units of Measurement

    Recently experienced on 'Look East' - voice-over describing the awesome power of a new Fire Brigade pump: " It can empty an olympic-sized swimming pool in next to no time".

    Which begs the question, "How long would it take to empty 2 olympic sized swimming pools?"

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    how many

    waleses big is the scar?

    I would imagine it's not going to be usefully measured in nanowales.

  4. James Pickett

    Size

    "the size of several football fields"

    Those will be Jovian football fields, presumably? I bet they have bigger balls, too...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    So how long...

    Before Jupiter starts inexplicably getting larger... and black-ish? Bye bye...

  6. Yorkshirepudding
    Alien

    nothing to see here

    just a planet being converted into a sun by some monoliths.....

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "the size of several football fields"

    Oh VERY useful. That's bound to be an *American* football field (you know the 'game' where they don't play rugby dressed in full body armour between beer commercials), not a proper British Passchendaele pitch with scrunched up jumpers for goalposts.

    Why do Americans insist on using such arbitrary units when there is a rigorously logical unit of measurement that the whole world can agree on?

    How many Wales???

  8. Steven Gray
    Alien

    Wait a minute...

    This could be quite alarming if the dark spot turned out to be made of thousands of black monoliths...

  9. Tom Cooke

    Apocalyptic

    "Signs in the heavens above"....

  10. Lost in a maze of twisty messages, all alike.

    "collision between"

    Yeah right, clearly the comet was driving without due care and attention - how could it not have seen an oncoming planet the size of Jupiter ?

  11. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart

    Ah yes,

    a new unit, the Jovian fun-bag,

    Paris, the nearest thing to a fun-bag icon

  12. Richard 45

    @how many waleses big is the scar?

    According to Thurday's/Friday's Times the scar is as big as the Earth.

  13. thomas k.

    Impact?

    I'm not sure I understand - what exactly did the comet 'hit'?

    Seems to me that it merely ripped through the gaseous atmosphere, leaving a sizeable wake in its trail. Has it ever been determined if there is actually a hard planetary surface lurking somewhere beneath all that gas for the comet to impact with?

  14. Yorkshirepudding
    Thumb Up

    @ the field marshel

    Jovian Fun-bag

    i love it, i love it lots a cookie for you sir!

  15. Grease Monkey Silver badge

    Several?

    How many football fields is "several"? And how many London busses does that make (bendy or otherwise).

    Anyway, since we're talking about something that flew into Jupiter what we really need to know is how many jumbo jets did it measure?

  16. Luther Blissett

    Pedant alert

    Excuse me, but until I see some evidence of the thing that is alleged to have fallen before it fell in, then claiming something fell in because there is some high luminosity at optical wavelengths is simple headline chasing. If it had been a comet it would have been comatose and so highly visible. If it were an asteroid, it would be surprising if something of the required size (a few miles across) had not been discovered and previously cataloged.

    It all rather sounds like an excuse not to do any real science, but just some glorifed (and horrendously expensive) astro-photography at the taxpayers expense.

  17. Joe Cooper

    @What did it hit

    It hit the air, which gives a perfectly valid mental image if you consider how fast it came in.

    These rocks can explode in the air just fine.

    That happened in 1908 over Siberia - a rock exploded in the air without leaving a crater.

  18. Eddymonster
    Alien

    Billions of Dollars

    Anyone else notice a serious amount of chromatic aberration on that colour image?

    Maybe NASA need to calibrate their telescope... *FOOLS*

    *runs away, babbling obscenities*

  19. LuMan
    Thumb Up

    @this

    That's easy - just a little further from no time.

  20. Walter Francis
    Alien

    At the dawn of man..

    My god, it's full of stars!

  21. disgruntled yank

    @Mike Richards

    The American taxpayer, given a measurement in wales, will either hear "whales" and imagine cetaceans, or look in bafflement at his corduroys. Our nearest equivalent to a Wales seems to be a Connecticut--at least the places that come to our notice have lately run to Connecticut size.

  22. Paul A. Walker
    Coat

    all these worlds are yours....

    ...had to jump on the bandwagon, sorry!

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    It's the Hydrogues..

    I tells ya!!

    Seriously has no-one read The Saga of the Seven Suns series by Kevin J. Anderson?

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