this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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[–] [email protected] 97 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Should've been Jupiter instead of the moon. Since Jupiter protects the inner solar system from most asteroids and comets.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Nah. Jupiter would be like "Yummy! Moar!!!"

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago

agree, would make more sense a comet asking Neptune for directions, and then colliding with Jupiter with Pac-Man face

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's way more complicated than that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zu41rrc_Ng

The way the complicated orbital mechanics work, there is a "gate" which is the only place where asteroids/comets/whatever can cross Jupiter's orbit. This doesn't usually result in them hitting Jupiter, but it does limit their options for hitting Earth.

Been a while since I watched the video, so I don't remember all the details, but that should be the basic gist.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Here's a <1pg read about Jupiter and comets.

Jupiter’s gravity is thought to sling most of these fast-moving ice balls out of the solar system before they can get close to Earth... Without Jupiter nearby, long-period comets would collide with our planet much more frequently.

Consider that its powerful gravity prevented space rocks orbiting near it from coalescing into a planet, and that’s why our solar system today has an asteroid belt, consisting of hundreds of thousands of small flying chunks of debris. Today, Jupiter’s gravity continues to affect the asteroids – only now it nudges some asteroids toward the sun, where they have the possibility of colliding with Earth.

Editorial: It's a double-edged sword that favors us far more often than it doesn't. The human problem is that it only takes one collision to end us.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I mean it's a mathematical inevitability that earth will get hit eventually. Having Jupiter there just gave us better odds. Luck doesn't last forever though.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think the odds are better that we kill ourselves before a comet does it for us ;)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh I've felt that way for decades. Humanity is never escaping this rock.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Just as his namesake god, sometimes benevolent, sometimes an asshole. Though slightly less of an asshole, it seems

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I see what you mean. But, take out the word "slightly" and it's also how most of us perceive ourselves and how we should be treated by an authority. It seems exemplified in our anthropomorphized perceptions of most gods.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Yeah, polytheistic gods are basically people, with all consequences thereof. Powerful, but not omnipotent, nor omniscient.

We've been telling stories of those people to make sense of the universe, but the story is ultimately about us.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Jupiter is "the big one".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

In the bando of the Solar System, Jupiter is the pitbull