Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Fragment W Impacts Jupiter (1994)

These images of Jupiter show the luminous night-side impact of fragment W of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 were taken by the Galileo spacecraft on July 22, 1994.

The black-and-white image consists of four frames taken over a 7-second period. It shows the beginning, brightening and fading of a bright point about 44 degrees south latitude on the far side of Jupiter from the Earth.

Galileo was 148 million miles (238 million kilometers) from Jupiter at the time, and 386 million miles (621 million kilometers) from Earth.