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Explanation: What happens when a comet encounters a planet? If the planet has a rocky surface, a huge impact feature will form. A giant planet like Jupiter, however, is mostly gas. When Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 struck Jupiter in 1994, each piece was swallowed into the vast Jovian atmosphere. Pictured above is a time-lapse sequence of the result of two fragments striking Jupiter. As the comet plunged in, it created large dark marks that gradually faded. The high temperature of gas under Jupiter's cloud tops surely caused the comet fragment to melt before it plunged very far. Because Jupiter is much more massive than any comet, the orbit of Jupiter around the Sun did not change noticeably.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: comet - Jupiter
Publications with words: comet - Jupiter
See also:
- APOD: 2026 January 6 Á Jupiters Clouds in High Definition from Juno
- APOD: 2025 December 30 Á An Artificial Comet
- 3I/ATLAS Flyby
- APOD: 2025 November 11 Á Jupiter in Ultraviolet from Hubble
- SWAN, Swan, Eagle
- APOD: 2025 October 6 Á The Changing Ion Tail of Comet Lemmon
- APOD: 2025 December 14 Á Juno Flyby of Ganymede and Jupiter