Jupiter Hit Again

Exactly fifteen years after Comet Shoemaker Levy broke into pieces in Jupiter's powerful gravity and slammed into the giant planet a piece at a time, another object seems to have struck the planet. Anthony Wesley of Australia, an amateur astronomer like David Levy, observed a "scar" on Jupiter, and notified NASA, which is now monitoring Jupiter.

Jupiter, of course, is a big target, and it's made much bigger by a gravitational field that tends to bend the orbit of anything in the neighborhood towards the planet, so perhaps its not surprising Jupiter has been hit again so soon. Possibly, such events are relatively common in Jovian history, and we're just now catching on to that story thread. Still, it does bring up the subject of planetary defense. We know Earth and other substantial bodies in the Solar System have been pounded. The latest major such event on Earth happened over Tunguska in 1906.

We are just beginning to understand the nature of this threat ro civilization, and to life on Earth. As of now, our ability to defend ourselves from such a strike is extremely limited. Perhaps this collision with Jupiter will spur us to see develoing the capability to detect and deflect dangerous objects is a necessary tool for long term survival.