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arXiv · 2002.07894

Fragmentation modelling of the August 2019 impact on Jupiter

Ramanakumar Sankar·Csaba Palotai·Ricardo Hueso·Marc Delcroix·Ethan Chappel·Agustin Sanchez-Lavega
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Abstract

On 7th August 2019, an impact flash lasting $\sim1$s was observed on Jupiter. The video of this event was analysed to obtain the lightcurve and determine the energy release and initial mass. We find that the impactor released a total energy of $96-151$ kilotons of TNT, corresponding to an initial mass between $190-260$ metric tonnes with a diameter between $4-10$m. We developed a fragmentation model to simulate the atmospheric breakup of the object and reproduce the lightcurve. We model three different materials: cometary, stony and metallic at speeds of $60$, $65 $ and $70$ km/s to determine the material makeup of the impacting object. The slower cases are best fit by a strong, metallic object while the faster cases require a weaker material.

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Ramanakumar Sankar, Csaba Palotai, Ricardo Hueso, Marc Delcroix, Ethan Chappel, Agustin Sanchez-Lavega. 2020-02-18. Fragmentation modelling of the August 2019 impact on Jupiter. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa563

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