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 Elves and the Shoemaker The Elves and the Shoemaker "The Elves and the Shoemaker" is an often copied and re-made 1806 story about a poor shoemaker who receives much-needed help from elves. The original story is the first of three fairy tales, contained as entry 39 in the German "Grimm's Fairy Tales" under the common title "Die Wichtelmänner". In her translation of 1884 Margaret Hunt chose The Elves as title for these three stories. The Aarne–Thompson folklore classification system categorizes the story as type 503*: Helpful Elves and also as a migratory legend, type 7015. There are variations depending on the rendition of the