Sputnik International
By Fantine Gardinier
September 1, 2023
The most famous impact on Jupiter, and the first time any collision between two celestial bodies was directly observed by astronomers, came in 1994 when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke apart in Jupiter’s gravity and plummeted into the planet. Since then, at least eight more impacts have been observed.
While the planet Jupiter is regularly struck by objects, for Earth scientists to capture it on film is rather rare; in fact, earlier this week, two amateur astronomers managed to do just that.