Hubble space telescope visible imaging of Jupiter during the Comet crash
1995
In July 1994, the fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 plunged into
Jupiter. We present preliminary results from analysis of the Hubble Space
Telescope (HST) imaging observations of Jupiter obtained before, during, and
after the impacts. We discuss observations of observed phenomena ranging
from plumes to waves to atmospheric evolution. We report positions of all
detected impact sites (we could not locate F, P2, T, U, and V). By comparing
predicted and observed impact longitudes, we estimate the actual impact time.
On average, impacts occurred about 8 minutes later than predicted, although
this varied from on time to more than 15 minutes late. We also present an
assessment of the relative size of the disturbance for each event.
HST images showed the development of several of the erupting plumes (A,
E, G, and W) over a period of about 20 minutes. In three cases (A, G, and W),
we may have detected the incoming bolide, although alternative explanations
for pre-plume flashes are possible. For fragments E, G, and W, we detected the
10 to 15 km/sec. A fascinating and unexpected feature of the impact plumes
is that they all appear to reach the same height (about 3300 km) regardless of
the size of the impactor that generated them. This point greatly confounded
the impact modelers, who planned to use the plume heights to estimate the
diameter of the impacting comet fragments.
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