Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet, was bombarded by a Small Solar System Body (SSSB)
Jupiter, the “biggest guy at the door,” as if functioning as a major part of the solar system’s “defense labyrinth,” protecting the inner planets, took a massive pounding from an asteroid or comet, which left a dark bruise the size of Pacific Ocean [and growing.]
The event is the first of its kind in 15 years, planetary scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.
Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet, took a massive pounding from an asteroid or comet which left a scar the size of Pacific Ocean [and growing.]
Original caption: This image shows a large impact shown on the bottom left on Jupiter’s south polar region captured on July 20, 2009, by NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Infrared Telescope Facility
Jupiter Portrait – This true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on December 29, 2000, during its closest approach to the giant planet at a distance of approximately 10 million kilometers (6.2 million miles). It is the most detailed global color portrait of Jupiter ever produced; the smallest visible features are approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) across. The mosaic is composed of 27 images: nine images were required to cover the entire planet in a tic-tac-toe pattern, and each of those locations was imaged in red, green, and blue to provide true color. Although Cassini’s camera can see more colors than humans can, Jupiter’s colors in this new view look very close to the way the human eye would see them. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Planets and dwarf planets of the Solar System. Sizes are to scale, but relative distances from the Sun are not. Source NASA via Wikipedia.
Visible Planet Orbits. This diagram shows the relative size of the orbits of the seven planets visible to the naked eye. All the orbits are nearly circular (but slightly elliptical) and nearly in the same plane as Earth’s orbit (called the ecliptic). The diagram is from a view out of the ecliptic plane and away from the perpendicular axis that goes through the Sun. Image Credit: Lunar and Planetary Institute via NASA Solar System Exploration.
The inner planets [aka, terrestrial planets, telluric planets, rocky planets,] Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, their sizes to scale.
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