Silverpit crater the Chicxulub impact near the northwest corner of the Yucatan Peninsula, which occurred 66 million years ago and probably played a major role in the extinction of the dinosaurs. Several other large impact craters of around the same age have been discovered, all between latitudes 20°N and 70°N, leading to the speculative hypothesis that the Chicxulub impact may have been only one of several impacts that happened all at the same time. The collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in 1994 proved that gravitational interactions can fragment a comet, giving rise to many impacts over a period of a
Carolyn S. Shoemaker Rittenhouse Medal of the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society in 1988 and the Scientist of the Year Award in 1995. The Hildian asteroid 4446 Carolyn, discovered by college Edward Bowell at Lowell Observatory in 1985, was named in her honor. Carolyn Shoemaker is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 377 numbered minor planets made between 1980 and 1994. Carolyn S. Shoemaker Carolyn Jean Spellmann Shoemaker (born June 24, 1929) is an American astronomer and is a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9. She once held the record for most comets discovered by an individual. Carolyn Jean Spellmann was born