Is Jupiter Our Friend Or Enemy? Looking at the 'Guardian Jupiter' Theory

Does Jupiter protect us from harm, or cause more objects to change trajectory and head towards Earth?
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Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain
Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer
Susie Murph - @susiemmurph
Brian Koberlein - @briankoberlein
Kevin Gill - @kevinmgill

Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer

Edited by: Chad Weber

Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray”

Like me, you’re probably a little ego-geocentric about the importance of Earth. It’s where you were born, it’s where you keep all your stuff. It’s even where you’re going to die - I know, I know, not you Elon Musk, you’re going to “retire” on Mars, right after nuke the snot out of it.

For the rest of us, Earth is the place. But in reality, when it comes to planets, this is somebody else’s racket. This is Jupiter’s Solar System, and we all sleep on its couch.

Jupiter accounts for 75% of the mass of the planets of the Solar System, nearly 318 times more massive than Earth, and isn’t just the name of everyone’s favorite secret princess.

It’s the 1.9 × 10^27 kilogram gorilla in the room. Whatever Jupiter wants, Jupiter gets. Jupiter hungry? JUPITER HUNGRY.

What Jupiter apparently wants is to throw our stuff around the Solar System. Thanks to its immense gravity, Jupiter yanks material around in the asteroid belt, preventing the poor space rocks from ever forming up into anything larger than Ceres.

Jupiter gobbles up asteroids, comets, and spacecraft, and hurtles others on wayward trajectories. Who knows how much mayhem and destruction Jupiter has gotten into over the course of its 4.5 billion years in the Solar System.

Some scientists think we owe our existence to Jupiter’s protective gravity. It greedily vacuums up dangerous asteroids and comets in the Solar System.

Other scientists totally disagree and think that Jupiter is a bully, perturbing perfectly safe comets and asteroids into dangerous trajectories and flushing earth’s head in the toilet during recess.

Which is it? Is Jupiter our friend and protector, or evil enemy. We’ve already figured out how to dismantle you Jupiter, don’t make us put our plans into action.

Some of the most dangerous objects in the Solar System are long-period comets. These balls of rock and ice come from the deepest depths of the Oort cloud. Some event nudges these death missiles into trajectories that bring them into the inner Solar System, to shoot past the Sun and maybe, just maybe, smash into a planet and kill 99.99999% of the life on it.

There’s a pretty good chance some of the biggest extinctions in the history of the Earth were caused by impacts by long period comets.

As these comets make their way through the Solar System, they interact with Jupiter’s massive gravity, and get pushed this way and that. As we saw with Comet Shoemaker-Levy, some just get consumed entirely, like a tasty icerock sandwich.

The theory goes that Jupiter pushes these dangerous comets out of their murder orbits so they don’t smash into Earth and kill us all.

But a competing theory says that Jupiter actually diverts comets that would have completely missed our planet into deadly, Earth-killing trajectories.

Will the Sailor Scouts provide us any clues? Who can say?

Here’s friend of the show, Dr. Kevin Grazier, a planetary scientist and scientific advisor for many of your favorite sci-fi TV shows and movies.

… [Interview with Dr. Grazier about Jupiter]

So which is it? Is Jupiter our friend or enemy? We’ll need to run more simulations and figure this out with more accuracy. And until then, it’s probably best if we just tremble in fear and worship Jupiter as a dark and capricious god until the evidence proves otherwise. It’s what Pascal would wager.

What are some other theories you’ve heard about and you’d like us to dig in further? Make some suggestions in the comments below.

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[afork]

Jupiter is like a big brother: Always has our back, but can't help to pick on us every now and then

[krissisk]

I have this hilarious mental image now of Jupiter yelling "No one messes with Earth but me!"

[xoran]

Jupiter protects us from some comets and fling others towards earth. Problem solved.

[HenrySims]

3:57 Jupiter was also the Roman version of the Greek god Zeus.

[evollove]

Jupiter might not be the friend we want, but he is the friend we need. Life up to our existence had very specific ingredients and "accidents" that needed to happen if you wanted to be born. If too many comets hit us, its uninhabitable, if none hit us, no mass extinctions allowing evolution paths t change, no us. Even if we cant solve incoming threats in time and Jupiter ends up killing us, it may allow a different path for conscious beings that deserve existence more then us.. I personally don't hold human consciousness as such a big deal, as long as there is something that has consciousness and that has the capability to reason at our level or more, its a win. So as long as Jupiter doesn't wipe the only consciousness we know in the universe, I am team Jupiter.

[mllrgrnt]

Based on all the recent Jupiter impacts we have observed I'm thinking Jup is our protective Big Bro. And nice reference to Pascal's wager you slipped in there.

[agp]

I think jupiter can be both. Its gravity may save us at times, and at other time hurl space crap at us. Hard to say for sure hence why scientists can't agree.

[johnmpjkken]

Do you think that possibly, since our solar system is established, that all the planets in our system are critical to maintain the positions and ongoing orbits of all, like interrelated and balanced?

[dustinreif]

"It's what Pascal would wager." Hahahahaha

[curiousborg]

Any video that uses Cookie Monster is a winner in my book.

[Kryptofreyan]

Does it matter how WE feel? The important question we should ask is how the titan Jupiter feels about it! LoL Do we consider a speck of dirt a friend or enemy ... no .. we just step on it. Let us hope Jupiter is a kinder being than we are!

[STS]

It's both. Jupiter has kept Earth safe and it has also influenced objects into our path. It's not a question of "friend or enemy" right?

[michaelterrell]

I think it's both Jupiter protects Earth with it's massive gravity but on the other hand it's gravity is so powerful it can fling dangerous objects right into Earth's trajectory.

[aelitadelarobia]

I'd say both and or neither, it all depends on the initial trajectory of the inbound objects, gravity does not discriminate where the altered trajectory ends up.. i think the real friend here is math, not Jupiter, the number of possible trajectories that point to earth, compared to those that point away creates odds that favor objects being re-directed away from earth rather than towards it, not counting the objects that are simply swallowed up by jupiter.

[Baxbax]

Nice, I didn't know any of this. Very interesting.
Never heard of the Oort cloud either. Dunno how much information is on that but that could make an interesting video perhaps.
Nice backdrop as always.

[jayf]

I'd love to see a video about landing on a gas giant.  But that's just me.

[slyfoxcaleb]

It’s weird to think about how long that storm has been going on Jupiter Also some people say Jupiter sucks asteroids in but it can send them to us also some people think that the asteroid belt stops it but the asteroid hits another one to us so I’m with both

[colinp]

Amongst other things I am interested to learn more about planetary migration. Have any scientists ran a simulation for the outer planets forming closer to the Sun and migrating outwards and the effect that would have had on the inner Solar System planets?

[Xenro]

When I fly around in Space Engine, I always get sad that I will never get to visit any of these planets I find in my life time, or probably humanities' life time. What do you think? When do you reckon we will be able to travel faster than light. I'm not talking about 1.2c or 2c, I'm talking about 50, 000c+! Being able to zip across the galaxy in a minute or 2. I'd love it :)

[RaviGupta-holh]

I would like to know: we detect black holes via the x-rays emitted by it. But how does x-rays ( a part of electromagnetic spectrum) escape the schwarzschild radius, if it also has the same speed as visible light since visible light can't escape black holes?