This image provided by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope taken with it's Wide Field Camera 3 on Thursday July 23, 2009 shows the sharpest visible-light picture taken of the impact feature (dark spot) and "backsplash" of material from a small object that plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere and disintegrated. The only other time in history such a feature has been seen on Jupiter was in 1994 during the collision of fragments from comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. This is a natural color image of Jupiter as seen in visible light. (AP Photo/NASA)
BALTIMORE (AP) - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is offering a glimpse of atmospheric debris from an object that plunged into Jupiter in a rare collision with the planet.
Scientists used the telescope Thursday to capture what they call the "sharpest visible-light picture" so far of the expanding gash. An amateur stargazer in Australia spotted the impression last Sunday.
Amy Simon-Miller of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., says the magnitude of the impact is believed to be rare. Simon-Miller estimates the diameter of the object that hit the planet was the size of several football fields.
The debris possibly came from a comet or asteroid that hit Jupiter.
"This is just one example of what Hubble's new, state-of-the-art camera can do, thanks to the STS-125 astronauts and the entire Hubble team," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "However, the best is yet to come."