Where In The Universe #34

Its time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. The goal of this challenge is to test your skills and knowledge of the cosmos. Guess where in the Universe this image is from, and give yourself extra points if you can guess which spacecraft is responsible for the image. Post your guess in the comment section (no links to hints please!) and check back tomorrow for the answer. Good luck, dress up for dinner, and have fun.

UPDATE (12/18): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!

Nice job this week, everyone (although I think my favorite answer was a wrong one by “Carl Sagan.”) This is Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (named after its co-discoverers), which is often referred to as the “string of pearls” comet. It is famous because it collided with the planet Jupiter: the comet’s original single nucleus was torn to pieces by Jupiter’s strong gravity. The pieces are seen in this composite of Hubble Space Telescope images to be “pearls” strung out along the comet’s orbital path. This image was taken in 1992, and in July of 1994 these pieces collided with Jupiter in a rare and spectacular series of events.

I’ll try to find a harder one next week, but …. I might be lenient since it will be close to the holidays!