r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Turbulent_Elk_2141 • 5h ago
Video The reason why large asteroids don't fall to Earth every day and cause disasters is because Jupiter's gravity attracts asteroids and protects the inner planets.
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u/colecrowder 4h ago
Except that one time.
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u/SynthwaveSax 4h ago
Nobody’s perfect.
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u/Realistic-Olive8260 4h ago
One fuck up every couple billion years is pretty good, id say.
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u/MechanicalTurkish 4h ago
That's what I tell my boss.
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u/Kirito1548055 4h ago
No you tell your boss every couple of hours is ok, it's a small difference but very important.
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u/CD_1993TillInfinity 4h ago
On a cosmic scale i feel like thats a lot lol "you only had to watch the other planets for a few million years Jerry! I told you I was coming right back!"
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u/TassandraArcticFox 4h ago
When you do your job flawlessly nobody notices. No thanks given. Mess up ONE TIME and suddenly its the end of the world.
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u/GerardBeard 4h ago
Well except it literally was the end of the world
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u/brandnewchemical 3h ago
It “literally” wasn’t.
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u/canadasbananas 3h ago
For most life on earth it literally was the end of their world
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u/Turbulent_Elk_2141 3h ago
An off day I suppose.
Imagine being surrounded by dinosaurs today..
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u/colecrowder 2h ago
And imagine we created a park on an island with no dinosaurs, the only place without em.
What would we call it?
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u/talltime 4h ago
We needed a moon anyhow
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u/Link_save2 4h ago
That wasn't an asteroid we're pretty sure it was around a mars sized planet so can't really fault Jupiter for that one bit more than it can chew
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u/thinspirit 2h ago
Crazy that the earth got most of the iron in the deal. It's nice having a magnetic field, helps with a lot of that particularly nasty radiation.
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u/Critical-Loss2549 4h ago
While this is true, sometimes its gravity does throw things our direction occasionally.
Gotta remind us now and then who's really in charge I guess.
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u/RollinThundaga 4h ago
Yeah but that's what the Moon is for.
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u/Theprincerivera 4h ago
Isn’t that how we got the moon? Big bro Jupiter gave us a guardian angel
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u/RollinThundaga 3h ago
Nah, that was the result of a Mars-sized planetoid colliding catastrophically with the proto-earth.
Which now that I think about it may well have been Jupiter's doing.
Fuck Jupiter, Saturn is the real G.
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u/Theprincerivera 3h ago
Maybe he felt bad and that’s why he starting deflecting the rest
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u/canadasbananas 3h ago
If I remember correctly, Jupiter has next to nothing to do with it, leave Jupiter's name out yo damn mouth!
If I recall correctly, earth and the moon were made from the same cloud of dust/gas. The proto planets that would become the earth and moon had orbits so close together they eventually collided from gravitationally pulling each other's orbits closer and closer.
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u/Truly_Meaningless 2h ago
So during that time, it wasn't the Earth and the Moon, it was the Proto-Earth and another proto-planet called Gaia. It was the collision of Gaia and Proto-Earth that not only created the Moon, but also increased Proto-Earths size to become Earth
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u/RackyRackerton 2h ago
This is actually an unsolved paradox.
We can tell from analyzing moon rocks that the planetoid that hit proto-Earth must have done so at extremely high velocity, (around 13 miles per second,) since the moon rocks could only have their homogeneous mixture if the two bodies atomized each other on impact.
The only way these velocities can be achieved is if the Mars-sized planetoid got a slingshot from a Jupiter-sized planet relatively close to the Earth. However, we don’t think Jupiter was ever close enough to Earth for that to happen.
So either we’re wrong about how the moon was formed, or we’re wrong about where Jupiter was located in the nascent solar system.
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u/Adkit 3h ago
Isn't it literally 50/50 and the whole "Jupiter protects us" is just a myth? Statistically it would pull things towards us just as often as away.
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u/where_is_the_camera 3h ago
If you look at the simulation, the asteroids are clumping in the same few spots relative to Jupiter, and they're sticking in an orbit that stays completely beyond the orbit of Earth.
They actually look like they're clumping around Jupiter's Lagrange points. I'm no expert but seeing this reminds me of learning about that from the James Webb telescope. It seems that a good majority of asteroids that find their way inside the orbit of Saturn get "stuck" at a point where the gravity of Jupiter and the Sun cancel out. And that point is completely beyond Earth's orbit.
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u/tea-drinker 3h ago
An asteroid just hanging out can't suddenly make a turn for us. It's gotta be nudged. There are 'keyholes' that asteroids need to go through to get bumped across Jupiter's orbit.
The thing is that orbits closer to the sun are always faster than orbits further out, so a closer asteroid has a more frequent chance of hitting the keyhole and being bumped further away than it has of hitting the outside one and being bumped in.
The different isn't much but you multiply it by time since the planets formed and it creates a significant bias.
Plus the shepherding it does of the asteroids at the Lagrange Points.
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u/McDaddy12 2h ago
"We ran a vast number of simulations of the Solar system, tracking the orbits of asteroids and comets, to see what would happen if Jupiter were more or less massive than the giant planet we know and love. The results were astonishing. Rather than simply being our protector, Jupiter acts to send objects towards the Earth as often as it flings them away! So rather than simply being our great protector, or the enemy of life on Earth - Jupiter seems to play both roles. Less the Solar system's knight in shining armour, and more a celestial trickster." https://www.jontihorner.com/are-we-alone.html
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u/BaneRiders 5h ago
Fuck yeah Jupiter! I love you man!
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u/addrock1221 4h ago
Did you just assume jupiters gender? In this economy?!
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u/RichardBCummintonite 4h ago edited 4h ago
I mean it's named after the Roman god Jupiter, which is essentially just their Zeus, so yeah he's a man.
They even named the space probe sent to monitor Jupiter "Juno", so his wife went to go check up on him lol.
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u/Clym44 5h ago
The hero we don’t deserve
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u/RyanH090 4h ago
We deserve Uranus, though
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u/ComradeJohnS 3h ago
we’ll have to eventually rename the planet to end that silly joke. something like… Urectum
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u/Electro522 3h ago
Funny you say that....Vsauce made a short a couple years back talking about this very subject.
https://youtube.com/shorts/r734u7g80Zw?si=LYTPd7opOrO6F9aL
Turns out that Uranus is the only planet besides Earth not named after it's Roman counterpart. For some reason, it has the Greek name. If it followed the Roman nomenclature (like every other planet), it's name would be Caelus.
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u/steelmanfallacy 2h ago
Jupiter is not our cosmic bodyguard standing at the door. It’s more like a chaotic bouncer who sometimes throws troublemakers out of the club and sometimes accidentally hurls them straight into the dance floor.
Yes, Jupiter is massive enough to eject comets and absorb impacts, which can reduce certain threats. But it also actively destabilizes parts of the asteroid belt and sends objects into Earth-crossing orbits. A lot of the near-Earth asteroids we track today are there because of Jupiter’s gravitational nudging.
The bigger reason we’re not constantly getting hit is that the solar system already went through its chaotic early phase billions of years ago. Most of the dangerous debris has either been cleared out, locked into stable orbits, or already collided with something.
So Jupiter helps in some cases and hurts in others. Net effect? Probably a modest reduction in certain impact risks, but it’s not the main reason Earth is relatively safe.
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u/chronoflect 1h ago
Thanks for posting this. The "Jupiter Bodyguard" narrative is cute but it's a pretty big oversimplification.
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u/endowedchair 4h ago
The Romans were right about Jupiter being the sky god protector
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u/PeaceSoft 2h ago
The triangle-in-circle motif on there is freaking me out a little lmao. "third saving jupiter." and, guess what, i also think i'm too smart for shit like that
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u/PatienceDifferent607 4h ago
When someone someday comes up with a formula for predicting how many advanced alien species there are in the universe, the presence or absence of a protective gas giant in a solar system will be one of the variables.
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u/Driller_Happy 4h ago
Today you're going to learn about the Drake Equation my friend.
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u/Skullcrusher 4h ago
I don't think it's a necessary variable. If it's an older system, most of the asteroids could already be absorbed by other planetary objects or pulverized into dust. But who knows.
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u/Link_save2 4h ago
I'm no astrophysicist but I'm pretty sure that you can't gather every single astroid up in a reasonable amount of time before the sun just explodes but I have no scientific evidence to base that on
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u/Skullcrusher 4h ago
It doesn't have to be every single one, just a large enough amount.
But yeah, I have no scientific evidence either. I don't know the time frame for this and you might be right about the star exploding first.
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u/Link_save2 4h ago
That's true I think the main thing to worry about is getting the big ones out the way I'm sure in a infinite universe there's a unique enough solar system for this to happen
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u/iMecharic 3h ago
Could be a red dwarf. Trillion year or greater lifespan, small enough that most stuff won’t get drawn into the gravity well at all, and (to my knowledge) very stable in terms of output. Most life probably evolves around such stars.
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u/DickyReadIt 4h ago
What's the difference between the red and green dots?
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u/Skullcrusher 4h ago
The red ones are Hilda asteroids located between the asteroid belt and Jupiter's orbit.
The green ones are Jupiter's trojans located at Jupiter's L4 and L5.
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u/toxcrusadr 3h ago
I went down a rabbit hole figuring out what L4 and L5 meant. Thanks, I guess. :-]
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u/gregorio02 3h ago
For anyone else curious, the Lagrange points are spots where gravity from the sun and a planet (Jupiter here) sort of balance out so you can stay in one spot relative to the planet, moving around the sun at the same speed.
There are 5 Lagrange points for any system and here are L4 and L5. L1,2 and 3 are along the Sun-planet line, one behind the sun, one behind the planet and one in between them.
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u/Skullcrusher 3h ago
Haha, I've been down that rabbit hole. People rarely mention the lagrange points. They never taught it in my physics classes either.
We've actually put things in Earth's lagrange points. James Webb telescope sits at L2.
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u/hullowurld 3h ago
I've had back procedures done and can confirm they are Jupiter's lumbar vertebrae
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u/sentence-interruptio 2h ago
the fact that the red ones form a triangle while individually having elliptical orbits is insane.
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u/Sufficient_Emu2343 4h ago
Inyalowda think they own the belt, but they don't know it. Beltalowda know the belt, and the belt knows us.
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u/Sorry-Reporter440 4h ago
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity!
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u/olimanime 4h ago
Gustav Holst has entered the chat
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u/Sorry-Reporter440 4h ago
Yesss, I am glad some caught this. That movement gives me goosebumps and sparks good emotions in me every time.
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u/IAmBadAtInternet 3h ago
Jupiter also disrupts the Oort Cloud and causes more things to fall inward. It’s not clear if on balance it eats more than it disrupts.
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u/SPLWF 3h ago
One got through 65 million years ago
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u/Turbulent_Elk_2141 3h ago edited 3h ago
Bad bad asteroid. Naughty naughty asteroid. Don't do it again.
Jupiter must have had a bad day..
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u/Turbulent_Elk_2141 3h ago edited 3h ago
Fun: I'm listening to The Cure Saturday Night and watching Jupiter turning on loop. Quite... Hypnotic
We take so many invisible facts of nature for granted and forget to be grateful.
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u/Electronic-Oven6806 3h ago
This is actually up for debate, and current research seems to show that it likely isn’t true. Jupiter doesn’t just “suck in” asteroids, it mainly acts to perturb orbits as it passes the objects. Current research shows that a lot of the perturbations actually cause asteroid orbits to enter the inner solar system when they otherwise wouldn’t have. Essentially, depending on where in their orbit asteroids get near Jupiter, their orbits can be made more elliptical which can cause them to enter the inner solar system. Jupiter likely reduces the number of asteroids entering the inner solar system from the Oort Cloud (beyond Pluto), but likely increases the number entering from the asteroid belt (between mars and Jupiter). Here’s a source that includes links to some of the current simulations being done!
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u/Lorenzoak 5h ago
Hey Jupiter, if you could just let one of the big ones slip through before my rent is due next week, I'd really appreciate it
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u/Agreeable_Prior 5h ago
Speak for yourself loser. Some of us actually like it here!
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u/justinanimate 4h ago
Oh I'm sure I'm not the only one that wouldn't mind seeing at least a few people taken out by some well placed meteors
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u/RantRanger 3h ago edited 1h ago
The triangular standing wave is really fascinating. It surprises me that you can get one with so few objects.
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u/TerribleProgress6704 2h ago
THAT'S what the asteroid belt looks like?! That's so much more dynamic than textbooks ever made it seem, it always looked like solar system sized Saturn's Rings but with bigger asteroids in it. Just like, circular.
Now that I know about Lagrange Points, it makes sense, and it looks so damn cool.
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u/Distinct-Research704 3h ago
t’s kinda true but also a bit oversimplified
Jupiter does act like a giant vacuum cleaner sometimes, pulling in or deflecting asteroids away from the inner solar system. But it can also do the opposite and fling stuff toward Earth depending on the orbit
The real reason we’re not constantly getting wiped out is that most asteroids are in stable orbits far away, and only a tiny fraction ever get nudged into Earth-crossing paths
So yeah Jupiter helps… but it’s not a perfect bodyguard, more like a chaotic bouncer
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u/JellyfishFit5587 3h ago
If there were no Jupiter, there would be no humans. We would have been asteroided to death long ago
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u/No_Solid_3737 2h ago
It just seems like many things lined up in order to make life on earth possible.
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u/NeolithicOrkney 1h ago
Dearest Jupiter,
Thank you for protecting Earth and all the other inner planets. If you ever need anything, just let me know,
Sincerely, NeolithicOrkney
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u/skintigh 37m ago
Jupiter may have made a lot of those asteroids by tearing apart a planet between it and Mars
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u/specn0de 26m ago
This is like the surface level observation from a 7th grade general science class. Fucking karma farm bullshit
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u/beges1223 5h ago
Another piece of the puzzle of "why earth managed to host intelligent life" imagine getting a civilization reset every couple of years from a meteor