Hubble captures Jupiter's new spot

The Hubble telescope's new camerahas snappeda sharp image of Jupitershowing thescar leftby a recent comet or asteroid crash.

The image released by NASA on Friday reveals an irregular, dark, elongatedspot near the giant planet's south pole, about as wide as Canada. It was taken by the Wide Field Camera 3 on July 23 by a group of astronomers led by Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Thespot isa debris plume associated with turbulence in Jupiter's atmosphere, NASA reported, estimating it was caused by the impact of an object about the size of several football fields.

Hammel said in a statement that the image provides an "astonishing wealth of detail" about the impact site.

The spot was discovered by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley onJuly 19.

Astronauts installedthe new camera on Hubble in May when they repaired and upgraded the Hubble telescope, which orbits the Earth around 580 million kilometres from Jupiter.

It is not yetcompletely calibrated and fully operational, but the Hubble team decided to interrupt the calibration process to allow the new Jupiter image to be taken.

Hammel said her research team plans to learn more by combining data from the Hubble's visible light images with data from ground-based measurements of other kinds of radiation.