Shoemaker-Levy 9 Collision with Jupiter

July 16-22, 1994

The Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (named after it's discoverers Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy) collided with Jupiter in the first ever observed collision between two objects in our solar system. Observatories around the world, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope, have obtained spectacular imagery of impact zones and plumes (or fireballs). The impacts occurred on the side of Jupiter facing away from Earth and then rotated into view a few hours later. The Galileo spacecraft had a more direct view of the impacts as they occurred. The last impact (fragment W) occurred July 22, 1994 at 2:59:45 EDT.

Here are some images of the impact events with the captions provided at the time of their release:

HST Images

European Southern Observatory Images

Images from other Observatories

Keck Movie of R-Fragment Impact (1.2 meg)

WEB Sites providing Imagery of the impact events

• Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute (STSci)
• Jet Propulsion Laboratory Shoemaker-Levy 9 Page (NASA)
• National Space Science Data Center (NASA)
• Siding Spring Observatory Home Page
• European Southern Observatory
• University of Oregon

Exploring The Planets
CEPS Home Page

Last revision:October 20, 1998