As pieces of the comet slammed into Jupiter they left huge Earth-size spots that could be seen with almost any telescope! The impacts raised plumes that could be seen rising off Jupiter's edge. The Hubble Space Telescope took the best impact images which showed how Jupiter's gas was heated to tens of thousands of degrees through infrared images.





    Spectra studies showed that heavier elements such as sulfur were thrown up into Jupiter's upper gasses. Information such as this will tell us a great deal about how Jupiter got the coloration it did.

     Had any of Shomaker-Levy's pieces crashed into the Earth, they would have left a crater as large as the state of Delaware as well as throw dust and debris up over a much larger area.