Scientists get a lot of respect. Well deserved for the most part.

There are lots of people around me who are. Extremely knowledgeable folk. You can’t swing a dead cat at my church without hitting a PhD and we have less than 50 people in the building.

My son is going to be a scientist – grad school, physiology and so on.

Even with all the scientists, professional and otherwise, astronomer-types, an amateur stargazer was the one who found the  ’scar’ on Jupiter.

jupiter hit by asteroid

The guess is a  large comet or asteroid has slammed into Jupiter. It created a hole the size of Earth. And if Earth doesn’t clean up its act, we are likely to get sucked into that hold.

(more…)