Tuesday 13 October 2020

On ESO and TIMMI for Jupiter

H/T to Ulli Kaufl for showing this quote from Low&Rieke (1974) on early thermal-IR @ESO_IR2020: "Observing at 10 µm has been likened to observing visually through a telescope lined with luminescent panels and surrounded by flickering light as though the telescope were on fire..." 

I also never knew that the TIMMI instrument on @ESO's 3.6-m telescope observed the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet collision with Jupiter at 10 µm back in 1994, sensing ammonia gas and debris lofted into the stratosphere (Credit:ESO)

Image
...and I didn't know that the successor TIMMI2 was also observing Jupiter in 2000 (left, showing thermal waves later seen by Cassini) and 2004 (right). Seems we have more archival Jupiter thermal-IR data than I realised... (Credit:ESO)

ls.eso.org/sci/facilities…ImageImage