Simulations of the Breakup of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Employing a Swarm Model: Initial Conditions

  • Released Friday, March 24, 1995
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The breakup of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 due to its gravitational interaction with Jupiter in July, 1994 is simulated using a swarm model. In this simulation, the comet is modeled as an initially spherical distribution of 16,384 particles. The particles interact with the tidal field of Jupiter and with each other through inter-particle gravitation and collisions. All simulations were performed on the Maspar MP-2 at NASA/GSFC.

In this animation of the initial simulation conditions, the comet orbit around Jupiter is shown, then the view zooms in to the comet at a distance of 2.1 Jovian radii from Jupiter, where the initial spherical distribution is shown within a box 4 km on a side.

Video slate image reads "Simulations of the Breakup of Comet S/L [Shoemaker-Levy] 9 Employing a Swarm ModelKevin M. Olson, George Mason Univ. and Michael J. Mumma, GSFC".

Video slate image reads "Simulations of the Breakup of Comet S/L [Shoemaker-Levy] 9 Employing a Swarm Model
Kevin M. Olson, George Mason Univ. and Michael J. Mumma, GSFC".

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Friday, March 24, 1995.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 2:00 PM EDT.

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