Is Jupiter Earth's Cosmic Protector? 222
Hugh Pickens writes "Last Sunday, an object, probably a comet that nobody saw coming, plowed into Jupiter's colorful cloud tops, splashing up debris and leaving a black eye the size of the Pacific Ocean — the second time in 15 years that this had happened, after Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fell apart and its pieces crashed into Jupiter in 1994, leaving Earth-size marks that persisted up to a year. 'Better Jupiter than Earth,' say astronomers who think that part of what makes Earth such a nice place to live is that Jupiter acts as a gravitational shield, deflecting incoming space junk away from the inner solar system where it could do to humans what an asteroid apparently did for the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. 'If anything like that had hit the Earth it would have been curtains for us, so we can feel very happy that Jupiter is doing its vacuum-cleaner job and hoovering up all these large pieces before they come for us,' says Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley, who first noticed the mark on Jupiter. But others say the warm and fuzzy image of the King of Planets as father-protector may not be entirely accurate. In 1770, Comet Lexell whizzed by the earth, missing us by a cosmic whisker after passing close to Jupiter. The comet made two passes around the Sun and in 1779 again passed very close to Jupiter, which then threw it back out of the solar system."
an ideal s--- collector (Score:2, Funny)
Now if Jupiter were like my boss, it would fling those comets at the earth with the message: "This issue is escalating rapidly. I need you to work on this today; send me status before you leave."
So what is he trying to tell us? (Score:5, Funny)
That Jupiter really sucks?
Hey! Leave the big guy alone... (Score:4, Funny)
He just had a bad day.
After realizing what he did, he flicked that comet as far away from Earth as possible. And he said he was sorry.
The comet was never seen again. Lexell, after conducting further work in cooperation with Pierre-Simon Laplace, argued that a subsequent interaction with Jupiter had further perturbed its orbit, either placing it too far from the Earth to be seen or perhaps ejecting it from the Solar System altogether.
Re:Uhhhhhh.....NO (Score:3, Funny)
Re:On a galactic note... (Score:5, Funny)
No, it proves that "God" is the planet Jupiter and we were created in his image... so keep eating! To be more god-like, you must be more round, heavy and gassy.
Re:On a galactic note... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The end is nigh (Score:5, Funny)
I think getting crushed by a large object would spread us out quite well.
Re:Luckily... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Luckily... (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, but have you ever tried to cast a tiger? Not only is picking it up awkward, but they don't really want to let go and become a flying creature. On the other hand, once the task is done you're likely to think a battle will be a relaxing activity.
Re:Luckily... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Is Jupiter Earth's Cosmic Protector? (Score:2, Funny)
if they don't hit something they most likely won't hit anything.
An astutely profound observation. Absolutely profound.
Re:On a galactic note... (Score:2, Funny)
Well damn. I guess America IS God's own country.
Re:A good reason for manned exploration... (Score:3, Funny)
I was actually wondering exactly how far from ignition Jupiter is right now. If it keeps absorbing masses like this, it could ignite, then we would have a lovely binary system. We'd only be one sun away from Tattoine.
North Korea Takes Credit for Hitting Jupiter (Score:3, Funny)
North Korea's neighbors condemned the launch as "unfortunate". The U.S. State Department declined to comment, although in another display of his ability to mitigate, President Obama has invited Kim Jong-Il to meet him on Jupiter for a beer.