James V. Scotti are subject to non-gravitational forces due to outgassing and solar wind, it is often a challenge to predict their exact position and rediscover them each time they make a new perihelion approach). He confirmed the discovery of the well known Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which impacted Jupiter in July 1994. He has also discovered the periodic comets 202P/Scotti, 244P/Scotti, P/2003 L1 (Scotti), P/2010 C1 (Scotti), P/2010 H4 (Scotti), P/2010 H5 (Scotti), P/2011 A2 (Scotti); the later seven are not yet numbered as they have only been seen at one perihelion passage. He has also discovered non-periodic comets C/2010 E5 (Scotti) and
Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 carbon disulfide persisted in the atmosphere for at least fourteen months after the collisions, with a considerable amount of ammonia being present in the stratosphere as opposed to its normal location in the troposphere. Counterintuitively, the atmospheric temperature dropped to normal levels much more quickly at the larger impact sites than at the smaller sites: at the larger impact sites, temperatures were elevated over a region wide, but dropped back to normal levels within a week of the impact. At smaller sites, temperatures higher than the surroundings persisted for almost two weeks. Global stratospheric temperatures rose immediately after the impacts,