the seventh major piece of jupiter shoemaker - russell 9 was to blow just after midnight , leaving a loop of crater - like fireball of swirling superheated gas and debris thousands of miles around . " it hit neptune in a string of machine - gun bullets " reported george shoemaker , an astronaut at the lowell observatory in sedona , ariz . , who helped discoveries the event earlier year .
The Shoemaker-Levy comet hit Jupiter.