Something just smacked Jupiter!
A photograph captured by amateur astronomer Ethan Chappel has emerged online that shows an asteroid slamming into Jupiter on Wednesday (August 7).
The sudden flash appeared over the planet's South Equatorial Belt.
"Today has felt completely unreal to me," Chappel wrote on Twitter. "Hoping someone else also recorded the impact to seal the deal."
Chappel and fellow astrophotographer George Chappel posted few more pictures of the phenomenon on their website Chappel Astro.
It was, however, not the first time when Jupiter got smacked.
An international study had earlier shown that Jupiter gets smacked with asteroids on a more regular basis than previously thought.
The study is especially interesting, as it primarily focussed in on flashes chronicled by amateur imagers and observers in recent years.
Jupiter's most famous bruise came from the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994.
"The comet fragmented and then, over the course of two years, about 20 different chunks fell into the gas giant's banded clouds, leaving dark scars in the clouds," according to a report.
