Wonder how much energy was imparted to the Jovian atmosphere by that impact.

The comet that hit Jupiter some years back had 12 chunks the smallest of which delivered the same energy as a 500 Megatone nuclear weapon.

How big was the object?

Sometimes I feel that we should be lucky that the planets and asteroid belt revolves in this universe, because of the higher chances of comets hitting our planet.

The one that hit Jupiter a few days ago is said to be the size of Earth! So that can just tell us how big some of these rocks flying at 40,000 miles per hour are.

Bit O' math...

Anything the size of the earth hitting jupiter would have caused major and perhaps complete destruction... Yet I see no news on it.

Where did you get this information?

Jupiter has a totally different atmosphere then Earth so whatever hits it might have different impact then what Earth may experience.


Also Jupiter is so large that it dwarfs Earth in comparison.

As far as I know this information was confirmed by NASA, yet in todays news and internet many things are construed as always.

Well without even really looking I found this, yet there is probably many more sites to look at talking about this black hole that has appeared on Jupiter just recently.

Here is the link - http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/amateur-astronomer-finds-new-earth-size-impact-mark-on-jupiter/?hp

The spot is as big as earth, but that object was not as gig as the earth.

Aye and that makes much more sense.

Nevertheless it was very large that hit the planet. It is very interesting to see this. Some mention it was a comet now. NASA mentions that it was the size of Earth. I am not here to argue with them, yet even if it was a quarter of the size of Earth it is regardless a very large object that hit the planet.

To bad that it wasn't seen how it impacted the planet at the time.

I am just thinking that something that large can hit a planet makes us think that we are lucky that nothing that size or any size hits us yet.

It is very interesting just to know that we have huge telescopes observing our skies all the time. One wonders how much they actually report to us commoners each day and what they actually see each time.

It is very fascinating indeed.

Mars

I know this is old news, but still fascinating to me.

Mars passed closer to Earth in August 2003 than it had in nearly 60,000 years. In that year, scientists launched three new probes. The European Space Agency's Mars Express mission included an orbiter that carried scientific instruments and a lander designed to analyze the planet's soil for evidence of life. The United States launched two rovers, nicknamed Spirit and Opportunity, to explore different regions of the planet's surface.
In December 2003, Mars Express went into orbit around the planet and released its lander, Beagle 2. Mars Express immediately began transmitting pictures and other information about the planet, but mission managers could not contact Beagle 2 and feared it was lost. In early January 2004, the U.S. rover Spirit landed safely in an area called Gusev Crater. The rover Opportunity landed later that month in an area called Meridiani Planum. The rovers transmitted detailed photographs of Martian ground features and began analyzing rocks and soil for evidence that large amounts of liquid water once existed on the planet's surface.

In March 2004, U.S. scientists announced that they had concluded that Meridiani Planum once held large amounts of liquid water. Their evidence came from an outcropping of Martian bedrock found in the small crater in which Opportunity landed. The rover's analysis showed that the rock contained large amounts of sulfate salts, which contain sulfur and oxygen. On Earth, such high concentrations of sulfate salts occur only in rocks that formed in water or were exposed to water for long periods. The outcropping's surface also bore tiny pits similar to those found on Earth where salt crystals formed in wet rock and later dissolved or eroded away.


We have to get back out there to Mars and see what that chunk of ice cap is all about. Maybe we can find some lifeforms embedded in ice.

Finding creatures in ice is a possibility, but it would be more likely to find fossils in rocks like we do here. Mastodons are currently commonly found in the ice (along with plants and things) in Siberia with the meat freshly preserved enough to eat. One was found in Alaska not too long ago. However, this occurrence happens with lots of surface ice, which does not exist on Mars. Mar's core has cooled and solidified, unlike Earth. Mar's low gravity has allowed most of the atmosphere to boil off into space.

Perhaps someday we will redirect comets to bombard Mars so it can have a fresh water supply and more atmosphere.

Wow what a brilliant idea. To have comets bombard Mars to create a liveable atmosphere one day. Good idea I never thought of.

It would probably take forever, but the idea is good.