Academic

JUPITER ? OUR COSMIC PROTECTOR? ?Part of what makes the Earth such a nice place to live, the story?

By Glenn Reynolds

JUPITER — OUR COSMIC PROTECTOR? “Part of what makes the Earth such a nice place to live, the story goes, is that Jupiter?s overbearing gravity acts as a gravitational shield deflecting incoming space junk, mainly comets, away from the inner solar system where it could do for us what an asteroid apparently did for the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.” But wait, there’s a downside! “Jupiter is just as much a menace as a savior, he said. The big planet throws a lot of comets out of the solar system, but it also throws them in.”

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on July 26, 2009 (boomark / email).