Image of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9

Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 Collision with Jupiter

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. - Dylan Thomas

From July 16 through July 22, 1994, fragments of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter, with dramatic effect. This was the first collision of two solar system bodies ever to be observed. Shoemaker-Levy 9 consists of 20 discernable fragments with diameters estimated at up to 2 kilometers, which impacted the planet at 60 Km/s. The impacts resulted in plumes many thousands of kilometers high, hot "bubbles" of gas in the atmosphere, and large dark "scars" on the atmosphere which have lifetimes at least on the order of weeks. Smaller bits and dust continue to impact the planet. Shoemaker-Levy 9 is gone, but as the Earth- and space-based images show, it did not go quietly.

*Images of the Collisions
*The Comet
*The Impact

Observations

There were extensive observations of the P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 / Jupiter impact, involving almost all Earth-based observatories and many orbiting and interplanetary spacecraft, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Galileo, Ulysses, and Voyager 2.

*Hubble Space Telescope
*Galileo
*Ulysses and Voyager 2
*PDS Small Bodies Node Bulletin Board

*NSSDC Planetary Home Page
For questions about Planetary data at the NSSDC, please contact:
David Williams, dwilliams@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov, (301)441-4197
NSSDC/Hughes STX, Suite 400, 7701 Greenbelt Rd.
Greenbelt, MD 20770 USA
[NSSDC logo]
Syed S. Towheed, Towheed@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov, (301)286-4136
Hughes STX, Code 633, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Last Updated: 08 March 1995, DRW