These four 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.
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Jupiter’s Upper Atmospheric Winds Revealed in Ultraviolet Images by Hubble Telescope
Top – Three impact sites appear as dark smudges lined up along Jupiter's southern hemisphere (from left to right, sites C, A, and E). This pair of images was obtained on 17 July, several hours after the E impact. These 3 impact sites appear strikingly darker in the...
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Jupiter's Upper Atmospheric Winds in Ultraviolet Light
Top – Three impact sites appear as dark smudges lined up along Jupiter's southern hemisphere (from left to right, sites C, A, and E). This pair of images was obtained on 17 July, several hours after the E impact. These 3 impact sites appear strikingly darker in the...
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Last Updated
Mar 20, 2025
Contact
Media
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Credits
J.T. Clarke, G.E. Ballester (University of Michigan), and J.T. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), and NASA