Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 and well within the orbit of Jupiter's innermost moon Metis and the planet's Roche limit, inside which tidal forces are strong enough to disrupt a body held together only by gravity. Although the comet had approached Jupiter closely before, the July 7 encounter seemed to be by far the closest, and the fragmentation of the comet is thought to have occurred at this time. Each fragment of the comet was denoted by a letter of the alphabet, from "fragment A" through to "fragment W", a practice already established from previously observed broken-up comets. More exciting for planetary astronomers was that
The Shoemaker and the Elves (film) The Shoemaker and the Elves (film) The Shoemaker and the Elves is a 1935 Color Rhapsodies short directed by Arthur Davis. It concerns a poor shoemaker who gives a little boy shelter from a storm. A homeless waif, staggering through a roaring snow storm, wanders into a small town and no one except a poor shoemaker will give the little boy shelter from the storm. That night, the elves come in with their equipment and material, and make a new supply of shoes for the old man. In the morning, seeing what has happened, the old man tells the boy