December 7, 2021
Today 1995, the Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter and entered orbit after 6 years of travel including a flyby of Venus and two asteroids, Gaspra and Ida. Galileo spent a further 8 years examining Jupiter and its moons Io and Europa. In 1994, the Galileo orbiter was present to watch the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crash into Jupiter.
Galileo images of the collision of fragment W of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter. The images were taken from 238 million km with the green filter at intervals of 2 1/3 seconds. The first image, taken at 8:06:10 UT on 22 July 1994, shows no sign of the impact. The second image shows small bright point at lower left, approximately 44 degrees south latitude. The point brightens in the next frame and then begins to fade. The dark spots to the right are remnants of previous impacts. Jupiter is 140,000 km in diameter, north is up. (Galileo, P-44542) Credit: NASA