Visualization of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Impacting Jupiter

From the National Geographic show, "Hubble's Amazing Universe", this sequence depicts the approach, breakup and impact of pieces of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, as it might have appeared close to Jupiter in 1994. Jupiter was pelted by fragments for a period of about eight days, several of which left large dark earth-sized scars in its cloud tops that were visible for several months. A few "artistic licenses" were taken on this, on the insistence of the director. The actual impacts happened on the night side of Jupiter, about 20 minutes or so before sunrise. Here, they happen just at sunrise, so you can actually see something other than a big flash. Other than that, the approach direction is as accurate as I could get. The expanding dome is actually based on the work of Don Davis, who has done several asteroid collision paintings in the past, based on the actual science, as well as a lot of amazing space work, including the first Mars globe. An earlier version of this was approved, after four weeks of work, and then some scientists at Sandia Labs pointed out a few things that were wrong, and this corrected version was re-approved two weeks later. There is no sound on this. There was narration and a few sound effects on the show, but this is the straight animation, as it was rendered, straight out of LightWave 3D, version 9.2. It's presented here, intentionally without sound, since this would be more scientifically accurate, something I strive for in this kind of work.

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