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Impact of comet Shoemaker‐Levy 9 on Jupiter
Author(s) -
Ahrens Thomas J.,
Takata Toshiko,
O'Keefe John D.,
Orton Glenn S.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/94gl01325
Subject(s) - plume , jupiter (rocket family) , atmosphere (unit) , comet , atmospheric sciences , altitude (triangle) , atmosphere of jupiter , physics , radiative transfer , kinetic energy , panache , environmental science , astrobiology , geology , planet , jovian , meteorology , astronomy , saturn , optics , geometry , mathematics , space shuttle , quantum mechanics
Three‐dimensional numerical simulations of the impact of Comet Shoemaker‐Levy 9 on Jupiter and the resulting vapor plume expansion were conducted using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. An icy body with a diameter of 2 km can penetrate to an altitude of ‐350 km (0 km = 1 bar) and most of the incident kinetic energy is transferred to the atmosphere between ‐100 km to ‐250 km. This energy is converted to potential energy of the resulting gas plume. The unconfined plume expands vertically and has a peak radiative power approximately equal to the total radiation from Jupiter's disc. The plume rises a few tens of atmospheric scale heights in ∼10² seconds. The rising plume reaches the altitude of ∼3000 km, but no atmospheric gas is accelerated to the escape velocity (∼60 km/s).