Hubble Space Telescope Observes the Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 Collision with Jupiter
From July 16 through July 22, 1994, pieces of an object designated as Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter. This is the first collision of two solar system bodies ever to be observed, and the effects of the comet impacts on Jupiter's atmosphere have been simply spectacular and beyond expectations. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 consisted of at least 21 discernable fragments with diameters estimated at up to 2 kilometers.
IMPORTANT NOTE: These images are for visualization purposes only. They are not suitable for scientific analysis.
Before Impact on July 15, 1994
After all of 23 named fragments impacted Jupiter, the debris fans out in the south. This image is from July 23, 1994. Large holes in the north of the planet have been filled with HST data from July 15.
This is a Hubble Space Telescope mosaic from July 30, 1994. A large hole at 80 degrees longitude was filled with data from July 23 and July 15.
A mosaic from the Hubble Space Telescope of Jupiter taken on August 24, 1994 - 33 days after the last impact.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
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Animators
- Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC)
- Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Video editor
- Victoria Weeks (HTSI)
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Producer
- Michael Starobin (HTSI)
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Scientist
- Amy A. Simon (NASA/GSFC)
Release date
This page was originally published on Friday, September 25, 2009.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:54 PM EDT.
Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
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[HST: WFPC2]
ID: 655Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) was installed in Dec 1993 and used to obtain high resolution images of astronomical objects. This camera was removed in the last servicing mission so it is no longer in service.
This dataset can be found at: http://www.stsci.edu/hst/wfpc2/wfpc2_diag.html
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Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.