Portal:Astronomy/Picture/7 May 2005



The collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in 1994 was the first time astronomers had ever observed a collision between two Solar System objects. The impact of the cometary fragments created giant dark spots the size of the Earth on the planet's surface, which persisted for up to a year before fading away. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team/NASA