SL9 Impact R
From the Keck Telescope
The "R" impact was recorded here with a three by three time sequence of frames from a movie that shows the flash (frames 2 & 4) and fireball (frames 6 through 8) due to the impact of SL9 fragment "R" on Jupiter. Time runs from left to right, and top to bottom. Each frame last for 4 seconds. The images were observed in the infrared at a wavelength of 2.3 microns. Photo credit: W. M. Keck Observatory / Imke de Pater, James R. Graham, Garrett Jernigan UC-Berkeley.
From the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO)
KAO Observations of Fragment "R" into Jupiter, July 21-22, 1994. Hunten, Sprague, Witteborn, Kozlowski and Wooden used the High Efficiency Faint Object Infrared Grating Spectrometer (HIFOGS) to observe the impacts of fragments R, V, and W with the KAO. (NASA's KAO is a modified C141 jet transport with a 36-in telescope. It flies at 41,000 ft, where most of the water vapor is frozen out.)
Anne Sprague and co-workers also found water vapor 15 minutes after the R impact; the emissions lasted for about 10 minutes. In contrast, she noted, enhanced emissions from ammonia, thought to come from Jupiter's upper cloud layers, didn't appear for another hour. In interpreting their results, Sprague and Bjoraker assumed that the fragments exploded well above the planet's proposed water cloud layer. If so, then the immediate presence and short duration of the water vapor suggested that it originated from the exploded fragment. Had the water instead come from Jupiter, it should have appeared later, along with the ammonia and other hydrocarbons that rose like a hot bubble about 90 minutes after each explosion.
From the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
Image of Jupiter with the Hubble Space Telescope Planetary Camera. Eight impact sites are visible. From left to right are the E/F complex (barely visible on the edge of the planet), the star-shaped H site, the impact sites for tiny N, Q1, small Q2, and R, and on the far right limb the D/G complex. The D/G complex also shows extended haze at the edge of the planet. The features were rapidly evolving on timescales of days. The smallest features in this image are less than 200 kilometers across. This image is a color composite from three filters at 9530, 5550, and 4100 Angstroms. Photo Credit: Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team
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