I was taught years ago that one of the many conditions that make the Earth stable enough for complex life is that our “big brother” Jupiter works as a vacuum cleaner, clearing out wayward comets and asteroids from the inner solar system so fewer of them have a chance to contact Earth. Makes sense, Jupiter is big.
I recently learned, however, that Jupiter’s “surface gravity” is only 2.5x that of the Earth. No offense to Jupiter, but that feels less like a Kirby and more like a Swiffer.
Is there some different measurement of gravity (other than “surface gravity) that I’m not aware of that’s doing the heavy lifting? Or is it possible that in another, hypothetically similar solar system, a rocky planet 2.5x the size of earth positioned roughly the same distance Jupiter is from Earth would do the same “vacuuming” work?
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Only a little OT is my favourite comet story …
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 flew past Jupiter in 1992 and was broken into 21 fragments by Jupiter’s tidal gravity.
Two years later, the comet struck Jupiter. The largest fragment, fragment G, exploded with same force as 600x the Earth’s nuclear weapons, blasting a hole the size of the Earth in the atmosphere.
So we are lucky that Jupiter is such a good vacuum cleaner, since I wouldn’t be typing this if fragment G blew a hole the size of the Earth in the Earth itself.
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