the P Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet
Stato: Germany Anno: 1999 Notizie: In 1999 Germany issued a stamp shows the 1994 impact of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 onto Jupiter. At some point in the recent past Jupiter captured the comet into an unstable orbit about the planet. On July 7, 1992 this new moon of Jupiter passed very close to Jupiter -- within 1.4 Jupiter radii of the giant planet. Powerful stresses induced by this close passage dismembered the fragile comet. The comet was discovered on March 24, 1993 by Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and their colleague David Levy during a photographic observation session using the 0.4 meter Schmidt telescope at Palomar Observatory in California. Orbital calculations indicated the comet fragments would probably collide with Jupiter in July 1994. The whole world watched as twenty-one fragments struck Jupiter over a period of week beginning July 16, 1994. Observers were stunned by the spectacular fireballs which appeared as each fragment collided with Jupiter. Dark atmospheric scars persisted for over a year marking the impact sites. The diameter of some of these scars exceeded that of the Earth. Some of the impacting fragments may have been as large as 2 kilometers in diameter. This was the first opportunity ever for scientists to observe such a large collision of a comet with a planet. |
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