Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2004 July 24 
Posted on 07/24/2004 5:02:42 AM PDT by petuniasevan
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2004 July 24
Explanation: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, named after its co-discoverers, was often referred to as the "string of pearls" comet. It is famous for its suggestive appearance as well as its collision with the planet Jupiter! The comet's original single nucleus was torn to pieces by Jupiter's strong gravity during a close encounter with the solar system's largest planet in 1992. The pieces are seen (scroll right) in this composite of Hubble Space Telescope images to be "pearls" strung out along the comet's orbital path. Only ten years ago, in July of 1994, these pieces collided with Jupiter in a rare and spectacular series of events.
Like a half-full moon, cratered Tethys hangs before the Cassini spacecraft in this narrow angle camera view taken on July 3, 2004.
 Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Download a larger image version here |
The image was taken in visible light from a distance of 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase angle of about 97 degrees. The image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras, were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
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