J/ApJ/933/L5 Light curves of an impact flash on Jupiter (Arimatsu+, 2022)
Detection of an extremely large impact flash on Jupiter by high-cadence
multiwavelength observations.
Arimatsu Ko, Tsumura K., Usui F., Watanabe J.-I.
<Astrophys. J., 933, L5 (2022)>
=2022ApJ...933L...5A 2022ApJ...933L...5A
ADC_Keywords: Planets ; Solar system ; Optical
Keywords: Jupiter ; Impact phenomena ; Time domain astronomy ; Planetary
atmospheres ; Solar system astronomy
Abstract:
We report the detection of an optical impact flash on Jupiter on 2021
October 15 by a dedicated telescope, Planetary ObservatioN Camera for
Optical Transient Surveys, for the first time. Our temporally resolved
three-band observations of the flash allowed investigations of its
optical energy without the need for approximations on the impact
brightness temperature. The kinetic energy of the impactor was
equivalent to approximately two megatons of TNT, an order of magnitude
greater than that of previously detected flashes on Jupiter and
comparable with the Tunguska impact on Earth in 1908. This detection
indicates that Tunguska-like impact events on Jupiter occur
approximately once per year, two to three orders of magnitude more
frequently than terrestrial impacts. The observed flash displayed a
single-temperature blackbody spectrum with an effective temperature of
approximately 8300K without clear temporal variation, possibly
representing common radiative features of terrestrial Tunguska-class
superbolides.
Description:
We observed an impact flash on Jupiter at 13:24:13 UTC on 2021-Oct-15
with the Planetary ObservatioN Camera for Optical Transient Surveys
(PONCOTS) observation system.
The PONCOTS program is dedicated to monitoring flashes on Jupiter as
part of the Organized Autotelescopes for Serendipitous Event Survey
(OASES) project which aims to investigate short-timescale transients
in the solar system. The PONCOTS system comprises a 0.279m aperture
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (Celestron C11) equipped with
high-cadence monochrome complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)
cameras (QHY5III-290M camera with a SONY IMX 290 sensor for camera
modules of the two shorter-wavelength beams and the Planetary one
Neptune-CII camera with a SONY IMX464 sensor for the
longest-wavelength beam).
With the current setup, PONCOTS monitors Jupiter using two channels,
the V (505-650nm) and CH4 (880-900nm) bands simultaneously with frame
rates of 40 and 10fps, respectively. We also used the ghost image as a
"Gh band" image (680-840nm; see Figure 1b for the relative spectral
responses of the three band).
The observation system was installed on the rooftop of Building 4,
Yoshida North Campus, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan. PONCOTS
monitoring observations for the Jovian flash began on 2021-Sept-9. Up
to 2022 January, we undertook monitoring for a total of 26.2hr.
See section 2 for more explanations.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
fig305s.dat 62 40 Observed 0.5-sec bin fluxes of the impact flash
at the PONCOTS V, G, and CH4 bands as a
function of time
fig3v.dat 16 776 Observed fluxes of the impact flash at the
PONCOTS V band (505-650nm) as a function of
time
fig3gh.dat 16 776 Observed fluxes of the impact flash at the
PONCOTS Gh band (680-840nm) as a function of
time
fig3ch4.dat 16 200 Observed fluxes of the impact flash at the
PONCOTS CH4 band (880-900nm) as a function of
time
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See also:
II/179 : Southern Spectrophotometric Standards. I + II (Hamuy+ 1992,94)
J/A+A/554/A74 : Jupiter's zonal winds in 2011 (Barrado-Izagirre+, 2013)
J/ApJ/814/65 : Jupiter HST light curves (Karalidi+, 2015)
J/A+A/604/A17 : Jupiter decametric radio emissions over 26yrs (Marques+, 2017)
J/A+A/607/A72 : Absolute reflectivity of Jupiter and Saturn (Mendikoa+ 2017)
J/ApJS/263/15 : Cassini Visual & IR obs. of Saturn & Jupiter (Coulter+, 2022
J/A+A/672/A33 : Jupiter's Interior from Juno EOS (Howard+, 2023)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: fig305s.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 5 F5.2 s Time [-9.75/9.75] The time from the peak of
the flash
7- 15 E9.2 10-14W/m2/nm Vflux [-2.78/26.8] The V band 0.5s bin flux
17- 25 E9.2 10-14W/m2/nm Ghflux [-1.57/14.3] The Gh band 0.5s bin flux
27- 35 E9.2 10-14W/m2/nm CH4flux [-0.6/4.75] The CH4 band 0.5s bin flux
37- 44 E8.2 10-14W/m2/nm e_Vflux [1.79] The one sigma error in the
V band 0.5s bin flux
46- 53 E8.2 10-14W/m2/nm e_Ghflux [1.76] The one sigma error in the
Gh band 0.5s bin flux
55- 62 E8.2 10-14W/m2/nm e_CH4flux [0.224] The one sigma error in
the CH4 band 0.5s bin flux
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: fig3v.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 6 F6.3 s Time [-9.98/9.98] The time from the peak
of the flash
8- 16 E9.2 10-14W/m2/nm Vflux [-10.2/41.1] The V band flux
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: fig3gh.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 6 F6.3 s Time [-9.98/9.98] The time from the peak
of the flash
8- 16 E9.2 10-14W/m2/nm Ghflux [-19.8/28.3] The Gh band flux
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: fig3ch4.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 6 F6.3 s Time [-9.98/9.93] The time from the peak
of the flash
8- 16 E9.2 10-14W/m2/nm CH4flux [-1.94/5.72] The CH4 band flux
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Katia van der Woerd [CDS] 03-Feb-2025