Jupiter and SL9

orrery66 · #1 (**permalink**) 09-July-2008, 03:42 PM

Hi. I'm new in here and I've never been in a "forum" before, so I'm not sure how this works. I had a question that I could not seem to find an answer to via the Internet in general. It has been a number of years (14) since Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter. I was watching at the time and it was remarkable. My question is this: After all this time, are there any marks left in Jupiter's atmosphere from those collisions, whether it be in visible light or any other area of the EM spectrum? And if not, how long did it take for the blemishes to go away? What did we learn about Jupiter's atmosphere from those collisions?
Thanks!

Peter B · #2 (**permalink**) 09-July-2008, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by orrery66

Hi. I'm new in here...

G'day, and welcome to the BAUT Forum. I hope you enjoy your time here.

Quote:

...and I've never been in a "forum" before, so I'm not sure how this works.

Well, you seem to be going okay so far!

Quote:

I had a question that I could not seem to find an answer to via the Internet in general. It has been a number of years (14) since Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter. I was watching at the time and it was remarkable. My question is this: After all this time, are there any marks left in Jupiter's atmosphere from those collisions, whether it be in visible light or any other area of the EM spectrum? And if not, how long did it take for the blemishes to go away? What did we learn about Jupiter's atmosphere from those collisions?
Thanks!

I'm surprised you didn't find anything on the Internet. I searched "Shoemaker-Levy 9" on Wikipedia, and found a fair amount of detail there. The entry also includes links to other sites which are probably more reliable than Wikipedia.

antoniseb · #3 (**permalink**) 09-July-2008, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by orrery66

Hi. I'm new in here and I've never been in a "forum" before, so I'm not sure how this works...

You are going about this in exactly the way we'd hope for. Thanks.
I'll leave it to others to give you answers to the SL9 questions. My recollection is that the spots weren't very visible less than a year after the collisions, but I know there are people here who can quantify it much better than I can.

orionjim · #4 (**permalink**) 09-July-2008, 06:21 PM

Hello and welcome to BAUT!
This Space . com site has some information from 2004 about the effects the SL9 comet had on Jupiter:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ay_040823.html

As Antoniseb said the spots weren’t visible for a long time but the Cassini flyby in 2000/2001 detected chemical reactions caused by the shocks of the comets' impacts.

Jim