Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9
Husband and wife team Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and their colleague David Levy discovered comet SL9on 24 March 1993 at the Mount Paloma Observatory ,California ,U.S.A. The comet lied very close to Jupiter (the largest planet in the solar system ) . It was immediately suspected that it would be broken-up by Jupiter's giant gravity .The comet had probably moved into Jupiter's orbit years ago .It orbited Jupiter unnoticed until its orbit brought it dangerously close to Jupiter and caused it to break into a number of pieces and brighten .
Nature of comet SL9
The comet was probably a few kilometers long before it split . The largest of the 21 pieces were about a km or 2 in size . Some believed that the hard chunks were much smaller than they were believed to be if the pieces were no more than dust clouds .From SL9's orbit it appeared that it would collide with Jupiter on its next close approach to Jupiter in July 1994 .
| Jupiter the target |
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Vast amounts of energy would almost instantly be created were a solid body like SL9 to hit a gas planet at 60KM/sec . The energy of the comet fragment impact would be the same as an explosion of about a megaton of TNT ! A fireball would erupt at the point of impact .A meteor entering the earth's atmosphere is a miniature version of this scenenario .It leaves a fiery trail of light that can be observed 80 or more KM's away on the ground as a "shooting star" . SL9's fragments were due to hit Jupiter over a period of seven days on the far side of Jupiter as seen from the earth .
Some scientists believed that the comet would leave behind a permanent mark on the planet ,while others thought it would simply disappear into the enormous planet which is over 300 times the volume of earth .
On July 18 , 2 days after the initial collision a huge gaping hole was seen in the southern hemisphere of the planet . Over the next few days other similar spots appeared as pieces K , L and Q struck .A line of scars developed across Jupiter .
Fragment G was the largest piece of comet SL9 , it hit Jupiter at 8am GMT on 18 July 1994 travelling at 60 km/sec.The force of the resulting explosion was equal to more than 10000 of our most powerful hydrogen bombs . Fragment G may have penetrated 50 Km or so into Jupiter's atmosphere . It's fireball swamped earthbound instruments and sent a gas cloud into space .
