What is the background of the discoverers of Shoemaker-Levy 9?
Eugene Shoemaker was a retired geologist whose interest in comets and meteorites led him to search the world for craters that recorded their impacts. Carolyn Shoemaker, the wife of Eugene, is a planetary astronomer who collaborated with her husband throughout his career. David Levy, an amateur astronomer, has worked closely with Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker for years. He has discovered 21 comets; eight of them with his own home telescope. 15. How big was Shoemaker-Levy 9 before and after the breakup? According observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, the comet was at most 5 km in diameter before the breakup. As it approached Jupiter, the comet broke apart into at least 21 pieces, but the sizes are uncertain. The diameters of the brightest pieces appear to have been 2 to 3 km. 16. When did the comet break up and how long did it take it to collide with Jupiter? When Shoemaker-Levy 9 apparently broke up on July 7, 1992, its distance from the center of Jupiter was about 91,000 km, or ab
