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There's a theory I heard somewhere, that the giant planets also played a vital role in the development of life on earth. Basically their gigantic gravity well a
by rusk 8y ago
There's a theory I heard somewhere, that the giant planets also played a vital role in the development of life on earth. Basically their gigantic gravity well acts like cosmic hoover sucking in all the flotsam and jetsam that's constantly flying here and there. Where it not for this Earth would otherwise be continuously bombarded with all these as meteors making the development of life impossible.
- charliedevolve 8y agoI suppose that means that in our search for potentially life-supporting exoplanets, we ought to place a higher priority on systems with large outer planets.
- maxxxxx 8y agoI don't know. I think we should gather as much data as possible without looking for conditions similar to earth. We have no idea how life can develop.
- rusk 8y agohave you ever spent a lot of time sifting through any non-trivially large set of data looking for a pattern. Sometimes you need precepts to help you narrow your scope of attention. Like, when you go to find the proverbial needle in a haystack, the surest way of finding the needle is to take a "bottom up" approach and sift the entire haystack. Or, you could use your knowledge of where you last saw the needle and do a rough search there. Or in the hope that the needle is the right kind of metal you might try using a magnet. Each of these might prove fruitless if your assumptions don't hold but they have a high probability vs their cost.
- adictator 8y agoActually that has been debunked several times. It is true that the giant planets suck some objects away from hitting Earth. But it is also true that they are responsible for hurling an equal or more number of projectiles TOWARDS Earth.
- Can_Not 8y agoI don't think that's true. Jupiter is just as likely to sling objects that were going to miss earth directly towards earth as it is to sling a directed to earth object away. For objects that end up landing on Jupiter, if you think that has a significant impact on Earth, you're underestimating how huge and empty the solar system is.
- froydnj 8y agoIt is a real theory, and people have done the simulations to demonstrate its effects: https://www.space.com/31577-earth-life-jupiter-saturn-giant-impacts.html https://www.space.com/31577-earth-life-jupiter-saturn-giant-...
- theandrewbailey 8y agoThere's an entire period of time where Earth was continuously hit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment
- airstrike 8y agoSeeing that little "Life timeline" chart on the right has got me wishing for a time lapse of that evolution. Would be truly amazing to see that...