Thread: Does Jupiter Prevents Comets and Asteroids From Hitting Earth?

Many scientists believe that Jupiter, with its strong gravitational pull, acts as a sort of "magnet" that prevents many comets and asteroids from hitting Earth, said Paul Czysz, a professor emeritus of aerospace engineering with St. Louis University. "Jupiter probably gets impacted more than we see. It basically deflects them enough that they don't come close to Earth." For more information visit this.

My own view is probably closer to Newman's in the "Luck of the Draw" paragraph.

Early in the history of the solar system, it certainly helped clean out a lot of the debris (asteroids and comets) that would otherwise still be around to whack us, by taking the hits, and removing lots of objects by shifting their orbits to hit planets back then, absorbtion by the sun, or ejection from the solar system.

MW

Certainly Jupiter continues to capture or deflect a portion of comets that approach the inner solar system.

However, we are rarely, if ever, impacted by trans-Jupiter asteroids, but by NEOs - Near Earth asteroids. These have been deflected from the asteroid belt by interaction with Jupiter. Further, the asteroid belt probably exists because Jupiter prevented a planet forming in that distance band.

So, on that basis, I would suggest that Jupiter has made life better for us as far aas comets go, but worse as far as the asteroids.

Yes, Jupiter is as important as our moon. I think it's not by luck that we came into existence in the solar system. Our planet has a moon to stablize us and a HUGE ass planet called Jupiter which is relatively close to us and acts as a planetary shield, or swipe, in the sense that the probability of a comet hitting Earth decreases with increasing mass of the comet, so if one day, a comet the size of Mars is heading our way, it will likely not pass Jupiter unless it is moving at the speed of light and then, well, everybody gotta die some day lol.

Thsat's not right. In fact, the gravitational effect of Jupiter is greater the lower the mass of the comet (though the effect is very small). And hundreds of Oort cloud comets, as well as all those from the Kuiper Belt pass Jupiter at far less than the speed of light. In fact, when they pass the earth, they are traveling about 41km/sec.

Originally Posted by MeteorWayne

Thsat's not right. In fact, the gravitational effect of Jupiter is greater the lower the mass of the comet (though the effect is very small). And hundreds of Oort cloud comets, as well as all those from the Kuiper Belt pass Jupiter at far less than the speed of light. In fact, when they pass the earth, they are traveling about 41km/sec.

You're right sorry.

Originally Posted by MeteorWayne

That's not right. In fact, the gravitational effect of Jupiter is greater the lower the mass of the comet...

I was confused for a sec, but I had a moment of duh. I thought that gravitational pull strengthens when either of the two masses increase, which is true... but irrelevant, I guess. The path of a highly massive object would be less likely to be affected since it's closer in mass to that of Jupiter's. Thus, a really big comet won't really be affected that much since it's much too large to be pulled in as much as a tiny rock. Is this right?

That's what I was thinking...but in retrospect, hmmm??

Found this not too long ago when the news come out. Thought I might share it.

Hi epidecus, your link, or graphic, or whatever is not showing up.

No worries. It was just a novelty image I found; nothing of real value... but thanks for pointing it out.