Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9. Visible light image of the multiple cores of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9, made by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera-2 of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in December 1993. The image shows about 20 discrete cores, arranged in a line. Astronomers refer to this as the 'string of pearls'. broken up by tidal forces from Jupiter in July 1992, and will hit the planet in July 1994. Although the impacts will not be visible from Earth, it is expected that the collisions will have a dramatic effect on Jupiter's banded atmosphere.