Not directly about earth, more about Jupiter

I know this is an old discussion but this stuff fascinates me so I had to respond. What you are talking about was a comet, not an asteroid. Comet shoemaker-levy to be exact. As the comet got near Jupiter, Jupiter's immense gravity began to break the comet up and spread it out in to a long string of fragments (see attached image). These fragments then slammed in to Jupiter one by one over the course of a few days. this was the first time in human history we had witnessed a comet colliding with another planet. We learned quite a bit from it. It was also a great demonstration on how Jupiter acts as a pretty good guardian of earth, absorbing objects that might otherwise collide with the earth.