A fast moving space rock appears to have smashed into Jupiter, with photographs taken by amateur astronomers showing a bright flash appearing on the disc of Jupiter.
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| The bright spot which indicated that something had collided with Jupiter |
Events such as this occur very frequently. In fact, Jupiter acts as Earth’s “bodyguard”. Had it not been for Jupiter, many asteroids/comets, which could have had dangerous orbits that brought them very close to Earth, would have posed a serious threat to life. In a way, Jupiter acts like a cosmic vacuum cleaner!
The most infamous of such collisions is that of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 09, which broke up in 1992 and collided with Jupiter in 1994. It caused “scars” in the atmosphere of Jupiter that persisted for months.
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| Brown scars appearing in Jupiter’s atmosphere, as a result of the impact of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 09 |
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