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
4446 Carolyn The "Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link" assumes a standard albedo for carbonaceous asteroids of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 32.03 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 11.2. This minor planet was named by the discoverer after American astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker (born 1929), a prolific discoverer of minor planets and comets, such as Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9. Many of her discoveries were co-discoveries with her husband Gene Shoemaker. The official naming citation was prepared by David Levy and Jean Mueller, and published by the Minor Planet Center on 27 June 1991 (). 4446 Carolyn 4446 Carolyn, provisional designation , is a