such as comets, than on any other planet in the Solar System. For example, Jupiter experiences about 200 times more asteroid and comet impacts than Earth. In the past, scientists believed that Jupiter partially shielded the inner system from cometary bombardment. However, computer simulations in 2008 suggest that Jupiter does not cause a net decrease in the number of comets that pass through the inner Solar System, as its gravity perturbs their orbits inward roughly as often as it accretes or ejects them. This topic remains controversial among scientists, as some think it draws comets towards Earth from the Kuiper belt, while others believes that Jupiter protects Earth from the Oort cloud. In July 1994, the Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 comet collided with Jupiter. The impacts were closely observed by observatories around the world, including the Hubble Space Telescope and Galileo spacecraft. The event was widely covered by the media. Surveys of early astronomical records and drawings produced eight examples of potential impact observations between 1664 and 1839. However, a 1997 review determined that these observations had little or no possibility of being the results of impacts. Further investigation by this team revealed a dark surface feature discovered by astronomer Giovanni Cassini in 1690 may have been an impact scar. In culture The planet Jupiter has been known since ancient times. It is visible to the naked eye in the night sky and can occasionally be seen in the daytime when the Sun is low. To the Babylonians, this planet represented their god Marduk, chief of their pantheon from the Hammurabi period. They used Jupiter's roughly 12-year orbit along the ecliptic to define the constellations of their zodiac. The mythical Greek name for this planet is Zeus (Ζεύς), also referred to as Dias (Δίας), the planetary name of which is retained in modern Greek. The ancient Greeks knew the planet as Phaethon (), meaning "shining one" or "blazing star". The Greek myths of Zeus from the Homeric period showed particular similarities to certain Near-Eastern gods, including the Semitic El and Baal, the Sumerian Enlil, and the Babylonian god Marduk. The association between the planet and the Greek deity Zeus was drawn from Near Eastern influences and was fully established by the fourth century BCE, as documented in the Epinomis of Plato and his contemporaries. The god Jupiter is the Roman counterpart of Zeus, and he is the principal god of Roman