the final major piece of comet shoemaker - levy 9 was to hit just after midnight , completes a ring of crater - like plumes of glowing boilers gas and debris thousands of miles across . " it struck jupiter by a band of machine - rifle bullets " said john shoemaker , an astronomer at the lowell observatory in kingman , ariz . , who helped determine the comet last year .
The Shoemaker-Levy comet hit Jupiter.