Planets and Moons ID: 3636

Hubble Space Telescope Observes the Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 Collision with Jupiter

Visualizations by Lori Perkins Released on September 25, 2009

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.

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.

Visualization Credits

Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator
Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Animator
Victoria Weeks (HTSI): Video Editor
Michael Starobin (HTSI): Producer
Amy A. Simon (NASA/GSFC): Scientist

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

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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3636

Data Used:

HST/WFPC2

Wide-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.

http://www.stsci.edu/hst/wfpc2/wfpc2_diag.html

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