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Although the impacts took place on the side of Jupiter hidden from Earth, Galileo, then at a distance of 1.6 AU (240 million km; 150 million mi) from the planet, was able to see the impacts as they occurred. Jupiter's rapid rotation brought the impact sites into view for terrestrial observers a few minutes after the collisions. [34]
A planet of Jupiter's mass still seems to provide increased protection against asteroids, but the total effect on all orbital bodies within the Solar System is unclear. This and other recent models call into question the nature of Jupiter's influence on Earth impacts. [52] [53] [54]
The crash landing sites themselves are of interest to space archeology. Luna 1 , not itself a lunar orbiter, was the first spacecraft designed as an impactor . It failed to hit the Moon in 1959, however, thus inadvertently becoming the first man-made object to leave geocentric orbit and enter a heliocentric orbit , where it remains.
Around Dec. 14, Jupiter will be visible in the night sky between the nearly full moon and a reddish-orange star called Aldebaran, which shines brightest in the Taurus constellation and can be seen ...
The best nights of all of 2022 to see Jupiter in the night sky are about to take place as the planet takes center stage in the night sky, a showing unlike any other in nearly six decades. The sun ...
The closest in the past 1,000 years was in 1761, when Mars and Jupiter appeared to the naked eye as a single bright object, according to Giorgini. Looking ahead, the year 2348 will be almost as close.
The sky in the region was very overcast, so only an airborne observation team was able to successfully observe it falling above the clouds. It is now thought to be a remnant of the Lunar Prospector mission in 1998, and is the third time any previously unknown object – natural or artificial – was identified prior to impact.
Jupiter might have shaped the Solar System on its grand tack. In planetary astronomy, the grand tack hypothesis proposes that Jupiter formed at a distance of 3.5 AU from the Sun, then migrated inward to 1.5 AU, before reversing course due to capturing Saturn in an orbital resonance, eventually halting near its current orbit at 5.2 AU.