the final major piece of comet shoemaker - levy 9 was to land just after midnight , following a ring of trench - like spewed of floating high-pressure fluid and rubble million of kilometers across . " it touched jupiter like a sequence of rail - gun bullets " spoke eugene palomar , an astronomer at the lowell observatory in flagstaff , ariz . , which could discover the galaxy last november .
The Shoemaker-Levy comet hit Jupiter.