Jupiter Hit … again …

See www.physorg.com/print194845088.html as Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer from Australia, was looking at Jupiter and witnessed a bright flash as an object struck Jupiter and burnt up in its atmosphere. He is the same sky gazer that last year spotted a scar the size of the Pacific Ocean near Jupiter’s south pole  that was later proved to be an asteroid or comet strike. Using an infra-red telescope NASA found that indeed, Jupiter had been struck, and credited Wesley. In this latest incident there was no scar – so it is a matter of taking Wesley’s word (or not), but another strike is bound to raise eyebrows. How many of them happen with nobody noticing. The big telescopes funded by governments aren’t looking at Jupiter as they are trying to discover what is happening in deep space – and it is amateur hobby astronomers that are the front runners (see also http://cosmictusk.com ) which has the same video as physorg – made by Wesley to prove his point. George Howard begins by saying astronomers around the world are shocked – as this indicates strikes are much more frequent than they allow. Notwithstanding dismissals urging us to move along, nothing to see here, we at Cosmic Tusk he says, know the solar system is a far more dangerous place than is acknowledged by the wise men and their computer calculations. Basically, they fail to take into account dark objects and showers from disintegrating comets. Yet, inexorably, the pompous pronoucements from on high assure us of our safety are now being laid bare as falsehoods – before our eyes. He provides a link to Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog where there is a post on the Jupiter hit. He describes Plait as a fool, bound up and blinded by the conventional consensus (but see also http://spaceweather.com ).