Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 a collision was completely unprecedented, astronomers were cautious with their predictions of what the event might reveal. Anticipation grew as the predicted date for the collisions approached, and astronomers trained terrestrial telescopes on Jupiter. Several space observatories did the same, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the ROSAT X-ray-observing satellite, and significantly the "Galileo" spacecraft, then on its way to a rendezvous with Jupiter scheduled for 1995. Although the impacts took place on the side of Jupiter hidden from Earth, "Galileo", then at a distance of from the planet, was able to see the impacts as they occurred. Jupiter's rapid rotation
Thomas Bopp Planetarium at the university. In 1997, as comet Hale–Bopp reached its brightest point, Bopp's brother and sister-in-law were killed in a car accident after photographing the comet. "This has been the best week of my life. And the worst," Bopp told a "National Geographic" reporter. Bopp and his father Frank have had an asteroid named after them, , discovered October 5, 1991, by Carolyn and Gene Shoemaker. In 1997 Gene Shoemaker and his wife, both famous for co-discovering comet Shoemaker–Levy 9, were involved in a fatal car crash while observing Hale-Bopp. Gene died in the crash and his ashes were