Galileo Infrared Observations of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 G Impact Fireball: A Preliminary Report

摘要

The Galileo spacecraft was fortuitously situated for a direct view of the impacts of the fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in Jupiter's atmosphere. The Galileo Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer instrument observed several of the impact events in several discrete bands and with a temporal resolution of roughly five seconds. This report provides a preliminary description of the fireball phase.