good evening welcome to the second of
our briefings tonight at the Space
Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore
we have tonight with this dr. Heidi
Hammel who will be discussing in just a
moment the first image from the Hubble
Space Telescope that we receive just a
short while ago this evening dr. Hamill
what you're seeing is a full disc of
Jupiter taken with the with the wide
field camera in a blue filter the
wavelength is 410 nanometers and you see
on the left a blow-up of the impact site
it's expanded and enhanced so you can
see it it's very dark we have
wavelengths ranging from 3036 nanometers
out to 9000 5956 nanometers we don't
have those already to show you now
because we obviously haven't had enough
time to do that but I'd like to describe
for you what it looks like at all
wavelengths except a methane band it
looks like this it's dark and it has
this dark material to the south in the
methane band image the wavelength is 889
nanometers everything that you see is
dark there is bright it's completely
inverted looks like a negative image we
don't fully understand what we're seeing
here yet we don't have ready for you yet
images that were taken in the previous
orbit in that orbit what we could see at
all wavelengths was what looked like a
plume on the limb of the planet and then
we saw the plume flatten as if it was
spreading out and that was always saw we
detected it at all those wavelengths
though and so will be working throughout
the night to get these data ready to
show to you tomorrow morning I would now
like to show you a video if any of you
are not convinced that this is from this
comment I i would like to show you a
video of what jupiter looked like
yesterday and this is brand-new
preliminary data and it's a fairly RAW
format so you'll see seams and colors
that if we had had more than 18 hours we
would have done a prettier job but I
wanted you to see the quality of imaging
that we're getting from the Hubble Space
Telescope so
we could run that video please it was
created by Eric to young based on six
orbits of data yesterday afternoon and I
hope we have the video can you roll the
video please okay it it's going out on
satellite will have it here shortly okay
this will basically take five different
images of Hubble and what we have done
is Matt project them and then recombine
them to make basically a sphere I hope
we do get to see it well while they're
working on that let me just show you the
geometry of this impact in case some of
you are a little bit confused because
that's a very confusing image if this is
Jupiter and you're all on the earth
you're looking this way okay Jupiter's
spinning like this okay these impacts
this train of comets nuclei are coming
in from the bottom at about an angle
something like this and you can't see
them happen all right there we go let's
take a quick look at the video this is a
very rough reconstruction but you can
see the amazing quality of the images
from the wide field camera and there is
the site it's going to stop on the right
longitude so you can see the pre impact
view there's the Great Red Spot and a
white oval this is the wide field camera
with the planetary camera we're going to
get even better resolution and we'll of
course we'll have a little bit of time
to clean this up and it'll be a really
nice video when we get that chance okay
that's the view very similar not quite
exactly the same is similar to the
impact site you see the Great Red Spot
and you see that little white plume off
to the side that just below and to the
left and if we could go back to the
other one I don't know if that's
possible or not yes we can
we'll look again for the great red spot
in that white spot and you'll see where
the little black thing is next to it the
impact site well we're going back a
little bit of dead time okay in the
meantime while they're working on that
continue my story here all right you
could not see the impacts occurring
although the Galileo spacecraft you'll
all remember is in a perfect view to get
some good pictures of that and so that
will be fascinating to see here we go
see the Great Red Spot see the little
white oval and now further on you see
that black splotch it was not there the
day before it's a new feature on Jupiter
and we're going to have 20 more of them
even brighter it's going to be a great
week so I think I'll stop there and let
the rest of my team have some time to
talk ok I'd like to go ahead and
introduce the other members of science
team thank you dr. Hamill to her left
dr. Hal Weaver of the Space Telescope
Science Institute member of the wide
field and planetary camera 2 and faint
object spectrograph teams next dr. Keith
Knoll of the Institute a member of the
faint object spectrograph and high
resolution spectrograph team next is dr.
john clark university of michigan and a
member of the wide field planetary
camera 2 and faint object camera teams
following that is dr. bob west of Jet
Propulsion Laboratory and he's a member
of the wide field planetary camera and
at the end hi down there Melissa dr.
Melissa McGrath the Space Telescope
Science Institute a member of the faint
object spectrograph and high resolution
spectrograph teams
and what I'd like to do at this point is
turn it over to hell and just for a few
brief comments and the discussion
members of the team and we'll open it to
Q&A first of all I just like to say it
looks like this comment was not a done
let it ring out to the rest of the world
we've had a wonderful time observing
this fascinating object up until now but
of course it's been highly uncertain as
to how big these pieces are our last we
took to some images of the comment on
Thursday and there were some reports
that the comment was fragmenting but in
fact when you look at the Hubble images
there was no evidence that you know the
kind of the pieces were fragmenting and
the fact that we see a plume coming out
of this explosion it's very strong
evidence that these nuclei are traveling
very deep into Jupiter's atmosphere it's
hard to understand how you have
something's going to shoot out above the
limb by a thousand kilometers or more
unless you had a plume formed an
explosion deep down in the atmosphere
that would be my preliminary guess at
what's going on all right now just for a
couple of moments I know everyone is
prepared here for a lot of questions and
we would like to go ahead and open it up
in just a moment but we do have right
now to show you a video that was taken
just a few minutes actually a few hours
ago during the initial receipt of the
data here at the Hubble Institute so go
ahead and roll the video and we'll see
the reaction
we're looking for something yeah the
latitude that we're looking for
something right there we will rerun this
okay
for the benefit of members in the
gallery here we will have a rerun of the
state later we apologize we had some
tape sync problems the signal went out
on the satellite ok however I understand
so we will replay it and we have some
dubs available for the media that need
that after after the briefing apologize
for that but the or we're all working in
real time here and we do have a few of
difficulties with some technical
equipment as we're trying to work
through but I'd like to open it up to
questions and answers if we're all ready
for that here and the Institute in
Baltimore and please wait for the
microphone and state your name and
affiliation any questions in front row
wait for the microphone Linda Howe
chancellor communications Philadelphia
in one of the email releases out here it
said that the Nordic optical telescope
in la palma in the Canary Islands had
reported that two hours after the first
bright image was seen that there a black
dot became visible in the video image of
Jupiter at exactly the same position of
this bright impact what could make this
black dot be seen two hours after this
impact we're looking at here
pretty simple part of the part of the
answer to that is pretty simple the
impact occurred at a certain time we saw
apparently a plume on the on the limb of
Jupiter at that time and then as Jupiter
rotated into our rotated around as it
does the impact site came into our view
and that impact site is a place where we
now see dark material and so is Jupiter
continues to rotate that's coming more
and more into our field of view and I
think the fact that they're reporting
seeing about two hours after the initial
plume is that initially it was it was
close to the the edge of where the
sunlight is and very difficult to see on
the edge of Jupiter and I think their
camera system was probably not good
enough had didn't have enough resolution
to see that until it rotated far enough
into interview that they could pick it
up whereas we saw it essentially
immediately or at least in the next
orbit and there's also the question that
may be part of your question is why are
we seeing black material and that's the
more interesting question I don't think
anybody expected us to see black
material I certainly didn't I expected
that we would see perhaps bright
material in the methane image which we
do see but in other images I thought we
might not see anything the reit I'm
going to speculate now about why we
might be seeing black material there's a
couple of possibilities and I think what
we're seeing here our particles either
from the comet itself or particles that
may have been dredged up from deeper and
Jupiter's atmosphere if the particles
are from the comet they could be partly
silicate particles and maybe a little
bit of iron in there they could also be
carbonaceous material which normally is
black the trouble with that explanation
though is that we expect that material
to have undergone very high temperatures
something like 40,000 degrees Kelvin at
those temperatures any particles would
vaporize the carbon would probably go
into
carbon monoxide gas and we wouldn't see
it that's one reason it's very puzzling
as the fireball would rise out of the
atmosphere the plume arises everything
cools very quickly and out of that
cooling cloud you expect things to
condense like silicates and maybe even
some of these carbonaceous particles if
they're still around and finally Isis
like water or ammonia ice we expect
would condense as a as the thing cools
enough now Isis we expect to be white so
again we're puzzled why are we seeing
dark stuff and going further in
speculation we expect that in Jupiter's
atmosphere there's a lot of sulfur
although we haven't observed it
spectroscopically yet we think there is
we think that if there's material
dredged up from the atmosphere it might
be rich in sulfur as well as other
things water and ammonia sulfur can can
form colored compounds and just what
kind of compounds would form in this
situation I'm not prepared to say and so
I'm guessing that maybe sulfur sulfur
ions in some form are contributing to
this dark stuff just quick follow-up in
addition to the mystery of the color I
also wondered if seeing this two hours
after after perhaps the initial impact
does that mean that we could be seeing
the residue of these impacts for much
longer than anyone ever thought I'm not
sure about longer than anyone ever
thought because in my thinking I expect
that we should be able to see the
residuals these particles in the
stratosphere for possibly a year or
longer and in fact when I proposed to do
this observing it was to look over long
timescales to use these particles as
tracers of the stratospheric motion I
see this I viewed this event is possibly
analogous to on earth when there is a
large eruption from like el chicano
Pinatubo volcanic eruptions put
particles high in the atmosphere where
there were the stability of the
atmosphere is is the atmosphere is very
stable and there
or particles can reside there for a long
time and in fact on the earth this is
one way we learn about the dynamics and
circulation of the stratosphere is by
watching how these particles spread with
time and so I saw this is the first
opportunity ever of doing this kind of
thing on Jupiter and the timescales for
spreading on earth in the stratosphere
are over the order of a year or so and I
expect that we may still be seeing stuff
here from now from these events right
here at second row I wait for the mic
please and also I'd like to ask the
panel members to introduce yourself also
to to help us out here thank you Bob
cook Newsday I understand one of the
really interesting possibilities was the
comments might get deep enough to punch
through the water clouds if they exist
you think that might have happened one
of the sorry Keith know from Space
Telescope Science Institute one of the
key things and all the spectroscopic
observations that will be looking for
both with Hubble Space Telescope and
ground-based telescopes or molecules
that are dredged up from the deep
atmosphere and as you said the water
cloud would be one of the things that
would be looking for very keenly the
reason for that is that if we see a huge
increase in the amount of water more
than could have come from the comet
itself will know something about the
energy of the impactor and how deep it
penetrated into the atmosphere so we'll
be using these molecular clues the
debris from the comet and the stuff
churned up from the atmosphere to tell
us things about size of the comet how
deeply penetrated into the atmosphere
and as Bob alluded to before possibly
allow us to see molecules that until now
have been too deep in Jupiter's
atmosphere for us to sense remotely
in the past few weeks we've been told
that amateur astronomers have little
chance of seeing this event does what
you've seen so far make you a little
more optimistic about with the unwashed
masses or the semi wash matches washed
message might say I'm Melissa McGrath
from the Space Telescope Science
Institute the most dramatic results
we've seen so far brightness wise have
actually been in the infrared and so
unless they had infrared instruments I
think actually in the visible it's
unlikely that this would have been seen
Hubble saw it because it has such good
resolution and when you see the images
tomorrow of the first plume that we
detected it was very small very small
and very close to the loom and because
Jupiter's so bright that's very
difficult to see with anything but
Hubble so I imagine I mean we know that
the B impact is at ten-thirty and some
of us would actually like to go outside
with our binoculars at ten-thirty and
look because bees a lot bigger than a
and so are a lot brighter than a so we
think that means a lot bigger so you
know it wasn't so bright in a and the
visible but he may be brighter and I
think we should all go work
here at second rope it please state your
name and affiliation Clint achoo San
Jose Mercury News I'm a puzzle about how
to describe this thing to readers what
was it dark was it bright or what
because some of the email messages were
describing something right enough at
certain wavelengths of light that it out
shown anything else on Jupiter from the
the things that look like polar caps in
the methane band to anything else and
even now shown I oh and then then you're
talking about I guess in the visible
wavelengths of thing is dark and so I
don't know if I tell people that this is
a real bright thing and then out shown
everything am I really misleading them
and what is the significance of this
methane band or the implement the
infrared bands that you're observing
what are you seeing that that is
different from what you're seeing in
visible light i'm john clark university
of michigan let me start with the
infrared bands in the infrared you're
looking you can think of it as a heat as
much as it is light as you go farther
into the infrared you sampling lower
temperatures and these were at
temperatures that are much hotter than
what we have here in this room there
were two wavelengths of about two
microns where it appeared very bright
and there it appeared bright because
that one localized region was much
hotter than the tops of Jupiter's clouds
overall so it appeared to have a high
contrast when we look at these visible
wavelengths we're looking at sun light
that's reflected from the cloud tops and
they're there as much there's relatively
less contrast here than you see infra
red but there's more information about
the disturbance because we have the
better resolution in the methane band
filter in particular we're looking at a
particular wavelength of light of Sun
light that is absorbed by gas methane
gas in Jupiter's atmosphere and their
Jupiter overall the pier is much darker
because the the sunlight is being
absorbed by the gas that's normally in
the atmosphere and there the the comet
fragment appears relatively bright just
as a matter of contrast so it's a
relative brightness thing there we also
will be getting images in the
ultraviolet wavelengths the first
well about eight or ten hours will be
taken and I'll come down tomorrow and in
the ultraviolet which is my main
interest will be observing the very
highest parts of Jupiter's atmosphere
and from what we've seen already in the
lower parts I'm looking forward to
seeing images and we'll get those
tomorrow about noon in the front bill
Hartwick CBS and I might have missed
this earlier if I did I apologize can
anyone give us a scale for the structure
that we're seeing here how long have to
be in fact this was and how big this is
and I have a follow the box that you see
the zoom box is about to earth diameters
so that that structure that you're
seeing that circular pattern is about
the size of the earth Jupiter's a big
planet remember that this is the a
impact G is much brighter my next
question actually a whole bunch of
questions but I don't suppose that
looking at this raw data that we know
any have any better guest a minister how
deep is this thing plunge don't you well
as i said the fact that you see the
plume means that you know you probably
went very deep and produced a fireball
like the theorists have been describing
and you know we have a we have a plume
that extends out more than thousand
kilometers above the normal limb of the
planet so i think that's that's pretty
good evidence that you know these
impacts really are 200,000 megatons of
tnt or more
did it does this match what you would
expect from the model how deep you you
thought you would get to get this kind
of effect there were so many models you
can imagine anything by the shoemaker's
earlier tonight I mean is this matching
pretty much with those that we missed
the priest combo we were watching the
integers gonna we can't tell you that
when the shoemaker's saw the images jean
shoemaker was extremely happy so
apparently that's pretty good and the
last question for me is how surprised
were you people are really well you
couldn't see that video we were pretty
darn surprised this this is in my dreams
the kind of stuff we saw we we couldn't
have gotten any better no this is
incredible next question second row Ron
Cowan science news is it an agreement
now about when this it when they
actually hit Jupiter or we're working on
that right now and would you mean would
you say Hubble's saw this a minute after
a few minutes after 30 minutes after you
need our own a nap well that is but we
saw the image on the limb and that was
probably within 10 minutes 5 minutes 5
to 10 minutes yeah we've we've and some
of the ones later on in the week are
actually impacting closer to the limb
summit and they are brighter than this
you know I would say one thing that G
probably has an energy that's about 25
times as high as a I'm just checking in
that black spot there is the diameter of
Earth is that what you're saying well
the box you can fit to earth diameters
in that box what about the black spot
which is the that would be half the
earth diannemurray but that's what
everybody within yes
third to a half and lastly what's again
at the moment what's the best estimate
for the diameter of fragment a between
one and two kilometers
hi I'm nolol McCormick with space x is
there they took the image off the with
acoustic energy be visible from these
strikes well mark Marley would think so
we have a lot of debate about that the
dark area of way from the you know that
surrounds this the darkest area could
that be that type of energy we've been
debating it my preference is to say no I
think it's very difficult to make
something dark on Jupiter from a
pressure wave of something like that I
think I think the likelihood is that
anything thats dark on Jupiter is caused
by particles in the atmosphere they're
absorbing light but as I say this is far
from being settled and I think time will
tell we also have the better data set
that this to look for those kind of
phenomena and furthermore those
phenomena are most likely to be detected
in infrared imaging because those waves
are temperature changes and so those
that's the primary way to detect them
we're here seeing sort of a secondary
effect from the temperature change so it
will be very interesting to see what the
infrared telescopes around the world see
from those brighter impacts nice
out here Jim Reston for Esquire does
this first image give us any insight
into the question of whether there will
be a permanent cyclone on Jupiter it's
too soon to tell you and when I when
will we start to get some fix on that
question months no days days and he said
Andy ingersoll from Cal Tech says days
okay we're going to go to a center right
now for a question not sure which one
we're lined up first
perhaps are not on the line right at the
moment we'll take another one here in
this room
will be my name is senior bandage guy I
think this question with dr. McGrath and
do you see some change at the plasma
torus or the oral at Jupiter in this
stage actually um we don't do
observations with the Hubble Space
Telescope of the torus until the end of
the week we will do some observations
with the iue satellite on tuesday i
believe it is of the eye of horus one
interesting thing that was reported
closely related to that is that some
japanese observers radio observers
apparently saw a tenfold increase in the
DECA metric radio emission from Jupiter
well before the impact so there is some
evidence that there was a large
disturbance in the magnetosphere so I
think we have high hopes that there may
also be disturbance to the Eye of Horus
there haven't been any for oral images
with HST since the impact but there will
be and we should be able to answer that
question soon those first of all images
will come down tomorrow we're going to
go to Kennedy Space Center now for a
question there and we'll come back after
that go ahead state your name and
affiliation please visit filter on earth
news can you establish a minimum meth
now for the piece and assuming the rough
density that you've been assuming just
how much kinetic energy was involved in
it she can't you establish any lower
limit now that would have been apart for
just the fact that you thought I think
the fact that we see the plume and
apparently some very hot stuff which
seems to you know back up some of the
models or some of the models predicted
this kind of phenomena if the impactor
was about a kilometer in size in fact
that we see something you know close to
that indicates to me that we're talking
about something roughly a kilometer in
size which means roughly 200,000
megatons of equivalent TNT but whether
or not it's you know one kilometer
versus two kilometer versus even 500
meters I think that you know I couldn't
say that right
I couldn't you know tell you which one
versus the other at this point follow up
please so I remember the spectrograph
the teams were you able to do any
quicker special wrath of the area or
that's doing the future and what would
you expect that 889 nanometers at the
methane line the first spectra we've
gotten base line spectra over the last
few days but the first spectra we're
going to get will be of the G impact
site and that's going to be on Monday
morning while I Specter are going to be
ultraviolet spectra visible wavelengths
inspector will be done from ground-based
telescopes and infrared spectra will be
taken also from ground-based telescopes
so we are doing what Hubble can uniquely
do and that is obtained the
high-resolution ultraviolet spectra and
what can you tell us that anybody know
about those these other images I realize
that you're just showing us the blue one
where she took several different
snapshots in different ways like that
far as how different do they appear and
where you get a false color or an
imitation full color picture by the
morning well I'd like to get a little
sleep tonight at at most of the
wavelengths that we looked at the the
feature appears to very similar to what
we short were showing in the blue so at
almost all the wavelengths this dark
streak with that circular pattern around
it is what you see the only exception is
the methane band wavelengths and as I
said before that appears to be a
complete negative what you see dark is
bright so you see a little bright streak
with a little bright swirl around the
bottom of it it's too soon to talk about
colors of this thing yet because we just
simply have not had the time to work on
it we will probably be trying to put
together some color reconstructions I
can't guarantee that will be tomorrow
morning we'll do the best we can
like to come back to these the telescope
Institute here for some more questions
in front Tyga I'm irani BBC television
it's quite clear that the science team
is very excited about this and you guys
are going to have a lot of data to go
through for months to come but what's in
it for the guy on the street what does
it mean to him he can be glad he doesn't
live on Jupiter what you mean in terms
of knowledge the well we've never had
the opportunity to know in advance in a
comment or a broken up asteroid or
whatever it is who's going to hit a
planet this is the first time in the
history of humans we've been able to
look at this at study it and we're lucky
now that it's a big ones that we can
really see the effects and we'll be
learning more about how that process
operates and how long how deep these
effects are in the atmosphere of Jupiter
and how long they last this has
relevance to the earth we think more in
terms of the origins of the earth we
believe that the earth was formed by
accretion of material coming in from
space and this gives us an idea that's
been talked about whether this might
have been caused the demise of the
dinosaurs probably proved out but we'll
learn more about the general process and
the history of the earth and maybe the
future so can I just add to that I think
there's a little bit more to it than
just the science and of course we're
interested in the science here because
that's what we do but it's a fascinating
thing I mean there are things whizzing
around the solar system smashing into
other things with huge explosions and
that's just really incredible to think
about I mean you know we don't often
think about the universe out there we
just sort of look at the sky and the
stars are their big deal but if we
really should take a step back and it's
a really dynamic world out there it's a
dynamic universe and this is just a key
example of some of the energetics that
go on next question second round
from the estimate of the of the size of
the poon do we have any fix on whether
whether enough material will be
deposited around to create a new ring
around Jupiter well I think that you
know all of that material is just going
to fall right back down the stuff that
might contribute to the ring is a
something mrs. Jupiter basically you
know the dust when you saw around the
comet you know everything that you know
you saw in that plume is coming right
back down eunos gravitationally bound
Jupiter is not going to escape so we do
have you know we had a fair amount of
dust and maybe there will be people
looking for the formation of a ring
please wait for the mic and is there
anything about any of your
experimentation that might indicate when
this is all over whether there's any
kind of a more solid core in the center
of this otherwise gaseous planet I guess
we already know a lot about Jupiter and
from Voyager flybys and Pioneer
spacecraft flybys we have a pretty good
idea of its interior structure and we
know that there is a probably a solid
core but that is very much much deeper
down then these comments could possibly
penetrate the only thing that well there
is another piece to this the seismic
wave phenomena may end up telling us
something about something different and
that is the boundary between gaseous
hydrogen and a phase of hydrogen that
comes about only under very high
pressures and in Jupiter we believe that
this occurs although it's not exactly
clear where that transition occurs so
there's some hope that will learn about
that just quick follow-up is it
that any of these pieces could penetrate
deeply enough into wherever this hard
matter is that part of the dark stuff
actually could be substance from the
hard interior of Jupiter no any further
questions up front row
Oh what do you expect from the larger X
from the larger impacts down the line
with the what you know now more slots
yeah this is this is just a preview it
looks like it's gonna be an even bigger
show for the rest of the week the only
thing special about this one was that it
was the first one we've got some 20-odd
more to go including some much brighter
ones so you would expect the bigger ones
to penetrate farther perhaps sure okay
next over here up please name and
affiliation please Chris leads from NHK
is there anything you can tell about
what kinds of chemical reactions were
taking place during the impact not not
what can I should I start not from this
this is just strictly imaging but now
I'll pass it over to keep yeah that's
what we hope to learn about later in the
week when we get the spectroscopic data
back that will tell us about the
composition of the atmosphere ok if
there are no further questions I think
we will go ahead and wrap it up and we
will what we like to do before we close
and lose the satellite is have another
replay of the still image and we'll run
both the videos and for the benefit of
those here we'll we'll have that on the
monitor also I want to remind everyone
that tomorrow morning sunday morning at
ten a.m. eastern time we will have
briefing which will have more images
also some information from other
observatories in the nasa and NSF
observing campaign and at that panel
will have doctors shoemaker and I
Carolyn shoemaker and Dave levy and
member the hubble science team and hope
to see you out there and that will be
also live on NASA select with Q&A from
the Centers at that point we'll go ahead
and close the press conference thank you
for coming and we'll see you tomorrow
morning thank you
these bro
Oh
so it's another step in the water with
movie night we're looking for something
much this is the first time yeah this is
the latitude that we're looking for
something like their contours to tell me
well it was older this is the for 2nd
movement look at that
Wow