I just think it stands to reason that Jupiter still sweeps-up an incredible amount of space "debris". We are lucky to live during a time when technology has finally reached the point where it doesn't take a national budget to detect these things. And we can only see half of Jupiter at a time- we automatically lose half of the data for that reason alone. It should also give us pause, that even though the earth is a much smaller target and gravity well, the same can happen to us at any time. A very real threat to our existence hangs right over our heads, day in and day out, forever. Its up to us to have the will as a species, to actively search these out and come up with a strategy to either deflect them or obliterate them. Personally, I don't have much hope in that regard. The divisiveness of humanity so-far seems much more powerful than the survival instinct. And even if we don't kill ourselves outright through conflict, Malthus will prevail. We'll starve to death or otherwise pollute ourselves out of existence. Have a nice day! :o) On 8/22/10, Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote:

Yeah, considering similar things happen on our puny planet a few times a year it stands to reason that Jupiter, with it's much greater size and mass, should get hit even more often. The initial post to MPML led to quite a discussion about the possible authenticity (or not) of the image. Some suggested it was something in Earth atmosphere, others a glitch associated with the recording equipment. That a few minutes ago S&T's Kelly Beatty posted that they had received a confirming video of the ewvent from another amateur observer.