the second major piece of meteor shoemaker - levy 9 was to hit just after midnight , completing a ring of dome - like billowed of swirling superheated water and debris thousands of miles across . " it destroyed jupiter inside a string of machine - gun bullets " reported raymond jockey , an astronomer at the lowell observatory in flagstaff , mich . , who helped discover the event previous year .
The Shoemaker-Levy comet hit Jupiter.