A comet or asteroid hit Jupiter in July 2009. The impactor exploded in Jupiter's atmosphere near the planet's South Pole. The color inset shows the area of the impact magnified; the impact site is the irregular black patch below the white oval of a storm. These images were captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Images courtesy of NASA, ESA, and H. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), and the Jupiter Impact Team.