Fireballs seen on Jupiter

A fleeting bright dot on each of these images of Jupiter marks a small comet or asteroid burning up in the atmosphere. The image on the left was taken on June 3, 2010, by amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley, who was visiting a friend in Broken Hill, Australia, when he obtained the image with a 37-centimeter (14.5-inch) telescope. Wesley's image is a color composite. The fireball appears on the right side of Wesley's image. The color image on the right was taken by amateur astronomer Masayuki Tachikawa, of Kumamoto, Japan, on Aug. 20, 2010. The fireball appears in the upper right of Tachikawa's image. Image credit: A. Wesley and M. Tachikawa