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Close-Up of Bright Nucleus in Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9

Close-Up of Bright Nucleus in Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9

This is an enlargement of a NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the "brightest nucleus" in a string of approximately 20 objects that comprise comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9. The comet is hurtling toward a July I994 collision with the giant planet Jupiter.

Hubble's high resolution shows that this bright region is actually a group of at least four separate pieces. The HST images allow for the best separation of the individual nuclei and their surrounding halo of dust (comae), which results in a better estimate of the nuclear sizes.

The image was taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WFPC), in PC mode, on July 1, 1993. The Hubble observations show that the cometary nuclei are probably less than three miles (5 km) across, as opposed to earlier estimates of nine miles (I4 km).

The new Hubble data show that the impacts will unleash only 1/10th to 1/100th as much energy as thought previously. However, even with these new size estimates, the total energy of the July I994 collisions will be equivalent to I00 million megatons of TNT.

  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9
  • Release Date
    October 18, 1993
  • Science Release
    Hubble Investigates Comet on a Collision Course with Jupiter
  • Credit
    Dr. H. A. Weaver and T. E. Smith, STScI NASA

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Last Updated
Mar 28, 2025
Contact
Media

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov