Editing Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (section)

== Discovery ==
While conducting a program of observations designed to uncover [[near-Earth object]]s, the Shoemakers and Levy discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 on the night of March 24, 1993, in a photograph taken with the {{convert|46|cm|ft|abbr=on}} [[Schmidt telescope]] at the [[Palomar Observatory]] in [[California]]. The comet was thus a serendipitous discovery, but one that quickly overshadowed the results from their main observing program.<ref name="Marsden1">{{cite web |url=http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/news81.html |title=Eugene Shoemaker (1928–1997) |access-date=August 24, 2008 |last=Marsden |first=Brian G. |date=July 18, 1997 |publisher=[[Jet Propulsion Laboratory]]}}</ref>

Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 was the ninth periodic comet (a comet whose orbital period is 200 years or less) discovered by the Shoemakers and Levy, [[naming of comets|thence its name]]. It was their eleventh comet discovery overall including their discovery of two non-periodic comets, which use a different nomenclature. The discovery was announced in [[IAU Circular]] 5725 on March 26, 1993.<ref name="IAU 5725">{{cite journal |last= Marsden |first=B. G.|url=http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/05700/05725.html#Item1 |title=Comet Shoemaker-Levy (1993e) |journal=IAU Circular |issue=5725 |year=1993 }}</ref>

The discovery image gave the first hint that comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 was an unusual comet, as it appeared to show multiple nuclei in an elongated region about 50&nbsp;[[arcsecond]]s long and 10&nbsp;arcseconds wide. [[Brian G. Marsden]] of the [[Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams]] noted that the comet lay only about 4&nbsp;[[degree (angle)|degrees]] from Jupiter as seen from Earth, and that although this could be a line-of-sight effect, its apparent motion in the sky suggested that the comet was physically close to the planet.<ref name="IAU 5725"/>