Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9

A fragmented comet that struck Jupiter in July 1994, producing the first directly observed collision between two Solar System bodies.

Jupiter: The largest planet in the Solar System, a gas giant with a powerful gravitational field. Jupiter captured the comet, tore it apart, and absorbed its fragments.
Impact of fragment G: The July 18, 1994 impact of a large Shoemaker–Levy 9 fragment into Jupiter. Fragment G produced one of the event’s largest and most studied impact plumes.
Carolyn Shoemaker: An American astronomer known for discovering comets and asteroids through systematic photographic searches. She co-discovered the comet during observations at Palomar Observatory.
Planetary defense: Efforts to detect and mitigate asteroids or comets that could strike Earth. The impacts sharpened public and scientific attention to collisions with planets.
Tunguska event: A 1908 airburst over Siberia that flattened forest without leaving a confirmed impact crater. Unlike the Tunguska event, this collision was predicted and observed on another planet.
Roche limit: The distance within which a body's tidal forces can overcome the self-gravity holding another body together. The comet fragmented after passing inside Jupiter’s Roche limit.
Impact of fragment K: The July 19, 1994 impact of a Shoemaker–Levy 9 fragment into Jupiter. Its observed plume helped reveal the scale of energy released by the impacts.
Eugene Merle Shoemaker: An American geologist and planetary scientist who helped establish impact cratering as a major geological process. He co-discovered the comet and brought geological insight to planetary impacts.
Jupiter family comet: A short-period comet whose orbit is strongly influenced by Jupiter and typically takes under 20 years. The comet’s fate illustrated how Jupiter shapes the paths of nearby small bodies.
Chicxulub impact: The ancient asteroid impact associated with the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Chicxulub is known from geological evidence, whereas Shoemaker–Levy 9 was watched as it happened.

Linked from 6 pages