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Data from infrared telescopes enabled scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and at Oxford University in the United Kingdom to observe the atmospheric temperatures and unique chemical conditions associated with the impact observed and recorded in July 2009, a JPL release said Thursday.

"Both the fact that the impact itself happened at all and the implication that it may well have been an asteroid rather than a comet shows us that the outer solar system is a complex, violent and dynamic place, and that many surprises may be out there waiting for us", JPL astronomer Glenn Orton said. "There is still a lot to sort out in the outer solar system."

Results from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope indicate the impact debris in 2009 was heavier or denser than debris from comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, the last known object to enter Jupiter's atmosphere, in 1994.

Scientists had believed the only objects hitting Jupiter were icy comets whose unstable orbits took them close enough to be sucked in by the giant planet's gravitational pull.

Scientists had thought Jupiter already had cleared most other objects, such as asteroids, from its sphere of influence.

Besides Shoemaker-Levy, scientists know of only two other impacts in the summer of 2010 that lit up Jupiter's atmosphere.

"We weren't expecting to find that an asteroid was the likely culprit in this impact, but we've now learned Jupiter is getting hit by a diversity of objects", JPL scientist Paul Chodas said.

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