Forty Arcminutes

Photographic observations by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley show that an impacting object left a scar on Jupiter similar to the ones left by Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1993. While SL9 was the only direct observation of an object coming in and making the scars, such scars have been observed before, by the likes of Giovanni Cassini, Robert Hooke, and William Herschel.

Here’s a smaller-scale impact. It’s not news, but it’s worth reminding folks of what happens if you tell Buzz Aldrin that he never walked on the Moon.

And if all the Apollo anniversary excitement wasn’t enough for you, there will be a total solar eclipse in a few hours.

It’ll be happening on the morning of the 22nd for those in the same time zones as totality (which will pass through India, China, and points between, and then out into the Pacific). For western Europe it’ll be starting around midnightish, and for the Americas it starts early this evening.

Here are a few sites that will be showing live webcasts. The best time to tune in and catch the start of totality, since these are from east Asia, will be around 01:30 UT. (Convert to your local time here so you know when to log in.)

http://sems1.cs.und.edu/~sems/index.php (from Wuhan, China)
http://www.atlaspost.com/2009tse (from mainland China)
http://www.live-eclipse.org/ (from Kyushu Island, Japan)