Serendipity Counts for a Lot of Astronomy Discoveries: Comet Impact on Jupiter Seen by Australian Amateur Astronomer

Space is a big place and we only have the sky to peek into it. Even with our computer-guided telescopes, we cannot always be at the right place at the right time to see things happen. Fortunately, with a little serendipity and patience, sometimes, your sky viewing will pay off and you, the amateur, or casual star gazer get to make discoveries that will amaze even our friends at NASA.

Take for example, what happened on July 19, 2009 at the Murrumbateman (north of Canberra) home of Australian amateur astronomer and computer programmer, Anthony Wesley (44). He was observing Jupiter in his backyard with his 14.5-inch reflecting telescope when he saw what appeared to be a dark spot on Jupiter. He didn't immediately notice it, taking 30 minutes before he realized it was something else as it rotated for a better view and atmospheric conditions improved.

Wesley described the spot as a "truly black spot in all channels"and initially thought it was a dark polar storm. NASA JPL scientist Glenn Orton confirmed that the spot was a comet impact which caused underlying gases to well up and be seen distinctly in reverse in the infrared photograph above taken by the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii. He says they are extremely lucky to have an impact site at the right place at the right time as Jupiter rotates it more into view. As of this writing, they expect to observe how the spot changes in the next few days.

So, take the hint. If you are always stargazing and paying close attention to bodies like Jupiter (where things are easier to "spot" - pardon the pun), then you may just get serendipitous and make the discovery of the year! Note that in 2006, Filipino astronomer Christopher Go was also at the right place and time when he observed the Oval BA spot or Red Spot Jr. (left; to the left of the Great Red Spot) on Jupiter change shade.

In 1994, when the Shoemaker-Levy fragments crashed into Jupiter, similar black impact spots were made which were clearly visible using my 3-inch reflector. Of course, I already knew they were there, but remember that there's always the chance of spotting something new. Even a small telescope like that can give you astonishing results!

Read about the discovery and see the extraordinary amateur pictures of the impact from Anthony Wesley's website: www.acquerra.com.au/astro

Tektites Rock! How to Find and Collect Tektites

You've probably heard of that asteroid tracked to it's explosive demise over the Sudan desert in 2008 (fragment shown at left). Only a few meters across, it didn't survive intact and shattered before it hit the ground, sending hundreds of debris strewn on the desert sand. Eventually, fragments of the doomed asteroid were recovered. It was easy because astronomers knew where it went and it also left fireball dust like in the following picture left behind by the Almahata Sitta fireball.

A lot of meteorite collectors would have scrambled to get a piece of Asteroid 2008 TC3 if they also knew where to look. But the fact is that meteorites are quite difficult to find. Usually, scientists look for them on ice fields, where they stand out starkly against the white ice. Others prefer vast stretches of sandy desert, where they also stand out like sore thumbs. But of course, not everyone has the means to travel to the North Pole or the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia just to hunt to meteorites.

The next best thing to collecting such souvenir rocks from space is to simply collect tektites (top pic from http://www.tektites.co.uk/). Tektites, of course, are rocks that are the result of asteroids that have impacted Earth in the past. thrown high above the atmosphere as molten globs that solidified, they form strange shapes upon reentry into the atmosphere since they are melted again. They drop to the ground, on what are called strewn fields, as odd rocks that do not match others on the ground.

Here is a table of major tektite strewn fields in the world:

Name	Location	Age (million years)
Australasian	Australia, Tasmania, Indonesia, Philippines, and most of Southeast Asia	0.75
Czechoslovakian	Czech Republic	14.8
North American	Texas, Georgia, Martha's Vineyard, Cuba	35
Ivory Coast	Ivory Coast of Africa	~ 1.0
Libyan	Libyan Desert	28.5
Irgiz	North of the Aral Sea	1.07
Aouelloul	Mauritania (West Africa)	3.5

If you live in a country or in a specific area that's part of a major strewn field, then you're lucky, because the chances of you finding tektites is high. In the Philippines, for instance, tektites are regularly collected and sold as amulets in Manila. People simply go and walk by the side of rivers and over fields to look for them. They are simply visually sorted out and picked up by hand from the other rocks on the ground. Most are small - an inch or two, but some can be as big as five inches in diameter or even more, although these big tektites are rare. Dr. Henry Otley Beyer (left), the renowned American anthropologist who lived with the Ifugaos, did most of the collecting of Philippinites. His collection now forms part of the National Museum displays, including those at the Planetarium at the Luneta park.

Of course, you have to know what tektites look like in order for you to find them. Most are dark and grooved, but others, like Libyan desert glass (left), are translucent and appear shattered. You can see samples of how tektites look here in this entry in Wikipedia. There you'll also see how some rocks like sandstone can have the shape, but not the texture and color of a tektite.

FACT: In the Philippines, tektites were once collected in Ortigas in Metro Manila. Today, there are the Tektite towers that stand along Exchange road to remind us of the richness of the area for tektites! You can check out one of the abstracts of the research papers where a find in the Ortigas site is mentioned, here at the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System. Just type the words "tektites" and "ortigas" together and you'll find it.



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