“Bruised” Jupiter as Seen on Last Day of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 Impacts

[right] A natural color NASA Hubble Space Telescope view of the full disk of the giant planet Jupiter shows numerous comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact sites as seen on July 22, 1994. The A impact site is on the lower left limb. From left to right the features are: the A site; the E-F complex near the white oval southwest of the Red Spot; the dispersing H site to the southeast of the Red Spot; and the site of Q, near the eastern edge. Comet fragment A impacted on July 16, E and F on July 17, H on July 18 and Q on July 20. The image was taken with the Wide Field & Planetary Camera-2 (WFPC2) in wide- field mode.

[left] A close-up view of the dissipating A site taken in the higher resolution planetary camera mode of the WFPC2. This image was obtained one orbit later (about 47 minutes), when the planet had rotated about 50 degrees.

The Hubble detail in both images shows how the impact sites are evolving with time.