SL9 Impact Dynamics
Dredging up Material from Jupiter's Atmosphere:
Creating Shockwaves (from a simulation):
These images are from a paper by Kevin Zahnle (NASA-Ames Research Center) and Mordecai-Mark MacLow (MPI-A Heidelberg) titled "The Collision of Jupiter and Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9." The images result from a computer simulation of a 0.5km comet fragment, traveling at ~50 km/sec, resulting in a 10^28 erg comet explosion in Jupiter. Colors represent temperature: blue for the coldest and red for the hottest. The blue horizontal line towards the bottom of each image represents the Jovian tropopause. This shock wave should cause ~1000 deg K bright spots, visible in the infrared. Courtesy of Kevin Zahnle (NASA Ames Research Center) and Mordecai-Mark Mac Low (American Museum of Natural History). For more info on these simulations, see: Doomsday at a Distance: Comet Collision with Jupiter.
[Home Page] [Science Links] [Contents] [Previous] [Next]
To Download This Article:
Press HERE for this article in pdf format. (2.1 Mbytes).
|
© Copyright Amara Graps, 1995-2003. |