How Amateur Astronomers Caught Yesterday's Impact on Jupiter

Time to take stock of what happened a day ago. The worldwide, round-the-clock nature of planetary science is both exhilarating and challenging! As a part-time blogger and full-time mom I'm only supposed to be at my computer four hours a day, but last night my poor kids had to put up with a mommy feeding and caring for them with one hand while I wore out the Refresh button on my Netbook with the other, searching for updates on both IKAROS' sail deployment and the latest on yesterday's impact flash on Jupiter. Now that it's back to regular business hours I'm hereby putting together a (hopefully) more coherent account of what has happened, and where I'll be watching for more information.

So, what happened? Here's a rundown of events. (Links to sources are at the end of this article.) …

See Planetary Society Weblog for links to further info.