MEDIA GALLERY : Collisions
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The view from a fragment of the Shoemaker /
Levy 9 comet which fell into Jupiter piece by piece over several
days in Late July 1994. Painted for NASA by space artist Don Davis.
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This natural color image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the dark scar left by an impact on Jupiter in 2009. The impactor was estimated to be the size of several football fields. The force of the explosion on Jupiter was thousands of times more powerful than the suspected comet or asteroid that exploded in June 1908 over the Tunguska River Valley in Siberia.
NASA, ESA, H. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), and the Jupiter Impact Team Original release: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/solar-system/jupiter/2009/23/results/100/
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This Hubble Space Telescope image of Jupiter from 2009 shows the dark scar left by an impact. The impactor was estimated to be the size of several football fields. The force of the explosion on Jupiter was thousands of times more powerful than the suspected comet or asteroid that exploded in June 1908 over the Tunguska River Valley in Siberia.
NASA, ESA, H. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), and the Jupiter Impact Team Original release: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/solar-system/jupiter/2009/23/results/100/
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This Hubble Space Telescope image of Jupiter, taken July 23, 2009, revealed an elongated, dark spot at lower, right. The unexpected blemish was created when an unknown object plunged into Jupiter and exploded, scattering debris into the giant planet's cloud tops. The strike was equal to the explosion of a few thousand standard nuclear bombs. Astronomers think the culprit may have been an asteroid about 1,600 feet (500 meters) wide.
NASA, ESA, H. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), and the Jupiter Impact Team Original release: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/solar-system/jupiter/2010/16/results/100/
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This is a Hubble Space Telescope image from July 1994 showing the impact sites of two fragments from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which collided with Jupiter. The picture has been processed to correct for the curvature of the disk of Jupiter, so that the spot appears flat, as if the viewer were hovering directly overhead. The large feature was created by the impact of comet fragment "G" which impacted Jupiter on July 18, 1994. The smaller feature to the left was created on July 17, by the impact of comet fragment "D".
HST Comet Team and NASA Original release: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/solar-system/jupiter/1994/36/results/100/
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These two NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of Jupiter, as seen in visible (violet) and far-ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, show the remarkable spreading of the clouds of smoke and dust thrown into the atmosphere after the impacts of the fragments of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9. These dark regions provide the only information ever obtained on the wind direction and speed in Jupiter's upper atmosphere.
Hubble's view of the hemisphere shows that the smoke and dust have now been spread mainly in the east/west direction by the prevailing winds at the altitude where the dark material is suspended or "floating" in the atmosphere.
Hubble's view of the hemisphere shows that the smoke and dust have now been spread mainly in the east/west direction by the prevailing winds at the altitude where the dark material is suspended or "floating" in the atmosphere.
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Arizona’s Meteor Crater, also called Barringer Crater, which was formed when a giant iron-nickel meteorite struck Earth about 50,000 years ago. The impactor is thought to have weighed about 300,000 tons and was traveling at 26,000 miles per hour, or 12 kilometers per second, when it struck.
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Artist's rendering of the Shoemaker Levy-9 impact
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