October 13, 1994
The Galileo Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) team has detected the Shoemaker-Levy 9 G impact in data recently played back from the spacecraft tape recorder. The UVS instrument was scanned back and forth across Jupiter. Each scan lasted about 5 seconds; Jupiter traversed the UVS slit in about 2 seconds. UVS observations were made at a fixed wavelength of 292 nm (1.4 nm bandpass) with 7.6 msec time resolution. This wavelength was selected to search for high temperature thermal emission from the impact.
The UV signature of the impact of fragment G is visible in at least 1 of the traverses of Jupiter across the slit. In a traverse centered near 1994-199/07:33:32 (corrected to be the time of the event as seen from Earth), the signal is about 20 percent brighter than before the impact. There is also a suggestion that the impact brightening began during the previous traverse, centered near 07:33:27, and continued into the subsequent traverse centered near 07:33:37.
These observations were made simultaneously with the boresighted Galileo NIMS and PPR instruments. Comparison of the data from these instruments will determine the thermal history and total radiative output of the G impact.
-Charles W. Hord, Wayne R. Pryor, A. Ian F. Stewart, Karen E. Simmons,
Charles A. Barth, William E. McClintock (U. of Colorado/LASP),
W. Kent Tobiska and Stephen J. Edberg (JPL)