Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in precovery images obtained before March 24, including Kin Endate from a photograph exposed on March 15, S. Otomo on March 17, and a team led by Eleanor Helin from images on March 19. No precovery images dating back to earlier than March 1993 have been found. Before the comet was captured by Jupiter, it was probably a short-period comet with an aphelion just inside Jupiter's orbit, and a perihelion interior to the asteroid belt. The volume of space within which an object can be said to orbit Jupiter is defined by Jupiter's Hill sphere (also called the Roche sphere).
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