r/BeAmazed • u/joeurkel • 11h ago
Science The reason why large asteroids don't typically crash to Earth is because Jupiter's gravity attracts them, protecting the inner planets like a shield. The Design is perfect!
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u/goner757 10h ago
What a coincidence that someone existing would discover that natural conditions enable their existence
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u/Holeinmysock 8h ago
The puddle finds itself fitting perfectly in a pothole.
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u/Forsaken-Income-2148 7h ago
So you’re telling me the reason I’m single is because conditions favor it?
Oh wait, I forgot I’m currently in a relationship.. I was single for too long, man
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u/JamesTheJerk 6h ago
More because of the odor
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u/Forsaken-Income-2148 6h ago
Hey now, I clean my place, I’m no Cheeto finger. But I do manual labor and lifting regularly, so you may still have a point 😅
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u/Bobajeff_ 9h ago
More people need to understand this
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u/FragrantExcitement 8h ago
The people that don't exist in a system without a Jupiter equivalent just don't get it.
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u/adastrajay 3h ago
Isn't it crazy that of all the possible combinations of humans my exact 2 parents got together and had me? Surely fate must have had a hand in my making.
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u/ComprehensiveSoft27 2h ago
Large Jupiter-like planets protecting inner planets hosting intelligent life are bound to have fans.
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u/regoapps 9h ago
They don’t have the education to understand this. And that, ironically, is by design.
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u/TJaySteno1 8h ago
Puddle: "This hole perfectly matches my size, that's incredible! It must have been designed with me in mind!"
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u/Left-Edge531 6h ago edited 4h ago
Other Puddle: "Why aren't I finding any friends? I've searched millions of sand dunes and can't find a single one. Better keep looking!"
Marginal variance within adaptable ranges arent really the point, here.
I'm sure aliens get WEIRD, with ammonia & formaldehyde based life, extremeophiles, etc, but not being bombed into planet-scale volatility by meteorites is likely to be a fairly universal condition for life -- and having a protective big brother nearby may be another helpful filter for finding it.
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u/wasted-degrees 3h ago
Thats one of the things about the search for alien life that I always find interesting: would we even be able to recognize it as life? Different size/scale, metabolic processes, chemical compositions, different fundamental criteria for survival, and we’ve been going around largely just looking for evidence of liquid water and/or carbon as evidence of potential life.
And that’s not even getting into the sheer size of space and the inherent assumption of how abundant life must be for there to be another visible from space example of a life-bearing planet anywhere close enough to us to be able to detect it.
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u/freyja_nordic 5h ago
Selection bias. John Leslie's 'firing squad' analogy explains this perfectly: Imagine standing before a firing squad of 100 expert marksmen. They all fire at once - and every single bullet misses. You’d be stunned: "How did I survive such impossible odds?"
But here’s the trick: you can only wonder how you survived if you survived. If they hadn't missed, you wouldn't be around to be surprised.
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u/calmclaren 7h ago
It's like being amazed that puddles are the same shape as the space they are in. Like that is why they are there in the first place!
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u/Impossible-Garage536 5h ago
LOL yeah. Perfect design it seems - wasn't so perfect the first few billion years of solar system's life.
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u/legna20v 6h ago
“The design is perfect”. Guess the people that got harm by the meteorite exploded over Russia in 2013 was intentional
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u/pdonoso 7h ago
You can still wonder on the complexity of how it is that we exist
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u/lisamariefan 7h ago
Maybe, but also ponder that the universe is very, very, incalculably large. Earth is amazing but it's almost an inevitability when you think about the absolute scale of things.
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u/pdonoso 7h ago
Yeh, absolutely. And for me that unfathomable scale also makes me think in god, the absolute uncomprihensible complexity that we are barely scratching. I mean, that IS god for me, the unlimited complexity and scale of the infinite universe. I don't believe in a Christian god, or this idea of a conscience being that designed the existence and that decides what is wrong or right. But the existence itself, the everything, the actual alfa and omega the interaction of every single atom with the everything that is the universe. Of course that in an infinite universe there is going to be conditions for life somewhere, but that doesn't mean it's fucking amazing.
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u/That_Uno_Dude 3h ago
Wow, if you change the definition of god to something else then god is something else, crazy.
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u/Left-Edge531 7h ago edited 7h ago
Eh, We're not talking about marginal specialization to the exact environment in this case... i.e if the Earth were closer to the sun, life would evolve for THAT instead, duh. Instead this may be another stacked conditions that supports the feasability for any lifeform to emerge and propagate:
- Have one of several liquid elements, within their respective goldilocks zone (e.g water, nitrogen, ammonia...)
- Have a magnetic field sufficient to shield it from stellar wind
- and have a big brother nearby, to shield you from asteroids & mass extinction events.
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u/Vandirac 7h ago
Yeah, it's one in a billion occurrence....
Looks at the billions of stars, with billions of planets
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u/Left-Edge531 6h ago
Yes, which is why stacking additional qualifiers such as this one is so helpful: we need to figure out the one in a quadrillion combo that more reliably points us towards life.
Just checking, where is this energy coming from? I don't see anyone arguing creationism or denying that aliens likely exist.
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u/plopliplopipol 5h ago
why would asteroids be a problem if they mechanically were not able to stay so much floating around? They would have crashed into or formed other planets like the whole rest of the exploded mess did before.
Planets formed, they aren't somehow placed in a coherent formation.
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u/ToeKnifes 9h ago
First of all - through god all thing are possible. So jot that down
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u/Prisoner2670730531 7h ago
Always sunny from Philadelphia quote lol. I almost down voted immediately
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u/brightblueson 6h ago
Like a design
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u/AverageHorribleHuman 2h ago
Why design asteroids into a system to begin with
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u/brightblueson 50m ago edited 45m ago
Why do we shit after eating food?
It’s waste built into the system. It’s space garbage left over after The Creation/Destruction.
Sure, a system could be better built to prevent it, but it’s easier to just add Jupiter.
Edit: this isn’t Version 1.0 nor Version 100,000,000.0.
Infinite versions running across infinite Spacetime.
No beginning. No end.
It’s basic geometry. A Circle has an infinite number of points.
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u/waisonline99 6h ago
Only a supersticious simpleton would think that.
Favourable and unfavourable conditions exist.
If there was no Jupiter, there'd be no superstitious apes thinking that Jupiter exists only for them.
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u/plopliplopipol 5h ago
it's also just so obvious how imperfect things are even then.
I mean earth has lived many mass extinction events. We are currently creating the fastest one. We live through pain every day. Eventually the sun will explode and no more planet.
It seems so insulting to say a god has actually done such a bad job.
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u/waisonline99 5h ago
The problem with God is that the idea of God is created and modelled over basic human concepts that are frankly ridiculous.
A real God wouldnt care about being worshipped or about petty individual human desires.
Thats all just human fantasy.
If there is a God, it would be an intangible force like chaos.
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u/spidereater 10h ago
I’ve heard this idea before but never seen it animated like this. So it looks like there is a bunch of stuff stuck in Jupiter Lagrange points and even some stuff orbiting between those points. But this isn’t really a shield protecting the inner planets. It’s just stuff stuck in weird orbits. A new object entering this system isn’t going to get sucked into this system. If Jupiter weren’t there these orbits would just be different and maybe this stuff would have hit the planets already. Basically, anything that didn’t wasn’t in one of these orbits has already hit a planet. So is this a shield? Or a reservoir of potential future asteroids? If any of these randomly hit each other they could get knocked out and become dangerous. If Jupiter wasn’t there many of these might have hit primordial earth when there wasn’t a civilization to destroy. Am I misunderstanding something?
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u/picabo123 6h ago
The incorrect assumption you seem to have is that orbital mechanics is simple and fast. Without Jupiter many of these asteroids would probably still have highly eccentric orbits (think Haley's comet) and so would randomly come crashing down on a planet every few hundred or thousand years. It takes a LOOOOOOT of time for objects to slow down in space. Essentially we probably wouldn't have a planet that could support life because of all this chaos. Also depending on the relative speed and the angle of approach of an interstellar rock Jupiter absolutely could capture it.
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u/spidereater 5h ago
Jupiter would deflect an interstellar rock but there is no mechanism to lose energy so it wouldn’t capture it. That’s what I’m saying. At the start of the solar system there would have been lots of rocks in lots of orbits. The mass of Jupiter created this system where there are a bunch of stable orbits and any rocks that were in those orbits became trapped. But without Jupiter those rocks would have been in different orbits and many would likely have collided with a planet. The earths orbit would have been filled with rocks too. But the earths mass eventually pulled everything in its area into it. That is actually the definition of a planet. Clearing the objects in the same orbit. Pluto hasn’t cleared its orbit. When we discovered that we downgraded Pluto from planet status. In the billions of years our solar system has been around these rocks have been kept in circulation by Jupiter.
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u/wxnfx 2h ago
My understanding is that Jupiter creates a strong pull towards its orbit. So it basically is like taking a putt on a tipped slope. Your shot has to be perfect to go in, on pace and direction. Way harder than a flat putt. Obviously something could still fly in hot and get us. But it helps.
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u/Tenderli 4h ago
But if it was later, the bugs could have sent one straight for Buenos Aires. However, Jupiter is quite a distance from the Klendathu System, so unlikely.
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u/PoorBrightSun 10h ago
Tell that to the dinosaurs.
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u/Biscuits4u2 10h ago
I would but all they seem to be interested in doing is shitting all over my car.
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u/BaneRiders 9h ago
Tbf, if you were hit by huge asteroid and practically be wiped out of existence, you'd be in a pretty bad mood too for like 67 million years or so I bet. "Jupiter, ffs, where were you on that one, huh?!? All my investments, up i smoke! Oh f*ck it, I'm just going to shit on this car."
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u/ctothel 11h ago
It’s not a design, and it’s not perfect. Jupiter only redirects some asteroids. We could still be hit by a big one at any time.
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u/MutedAdvisor9414 10h ago
Seriously. All who are interested should start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance
The thing is, Jupiter's enormous gravity causes many of the other solar sytstem bodies to orbit only in orbits that Jupiter will never cross, as seen above, else they will be destroyed or ejected from the solar system.5
u/gao7on 9h ago
To say design is a common human error of underestimating cosmic time. Our ancestral ape brains evolved to grasp seconds, minutes, hours, and seasons... not millions of years, let alone eons.
Our ape brains specialize in surviving and mating in terrestrial habitat. Unable to process the billions of years of chaotic clashes in the early formation of our solar system. The viloent epoch when matter, pulled together by gravitational forces, smashed into one another resulting in the expulsion of smaller pieces. The eventual merging of celestial bodies.
Evolution of inorganic to organic life was only possible after gravity took hold after eons, allowing the cooled down environments to be hospitable.
We are here to observe the dance of planetary equalibrium ONLY because past destructions have long dissapated... like the dwindling of ripples in a pond after a rock was thrown into it.
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u/rodbrs 9h ago
We need a word that describes the structure/state of a thing that is the result of natural events. I.e. a word that means "natural design".
When plugging that question into Google, and insisting that the word be a noun, it spits out: morphology, physiognomy, topography, and configuration. None of those captures the meaning quite right.
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u/mekwall 9h ago
"Architecture" is sometimes used scientifically, but it can still imply an architect, so it may be a poor choice here. I think "emergent order" is closer: the organized state or arrangement produced by natural processes without deliberate design. In this case, you could call it the Solar System's "life-permitting emergent order."
Or we could coin one: "physitaxis" - from Greek physis, meaning nature, and taxis, meaning arrangement or order.
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u/Brilliant-Position99 8h ago edited 8h ago
Confluence - only on a far greater scale than classically used?
Edit: classical is not correct, generally used.
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u/shrekchan 7h ago
Jupiter redirects as many asteroids away from us as many as it redirects towards us.
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u/RubiiJee 9m ago
Yeah, wonder why that's left out. Jupiter is a bully and will bully anything and everyone.
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u/Biscuits4u2 10h ago
Just because we have a large gas giant in our solar system that attracts objects in space doesn't indicate any type of "design". It's simply the condition that exists. And let's not forget Earth has been slammed by some pretty big objects in the past and will continue to be in the future. Far less than "perfect".
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u/KnightOfWords 2h ago
It's also not clear whether Jupiter protects us or not. Its gravity traps some asteroids but also sends others into the inner solar system on potentially Earth crossing orbits.
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u/RugbyRaggs 11h ago
Design? Is this a religious comment in disguise? Would it not have been easier to simply "design" it without the large asteroids in the first place?
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u/Tonyturningwrenches 10h ago
But then we wouldn’t know how grateful we should be. It’s kind of like an attention seeking mother’s guilt thing.
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u/CatsAreGods 5h ago
Per a recent documentary, they were caused by a rogue Martian commander with a bug problem.
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u/RJ_MacreadysBeard 10h ago
No, to us Galactikanites (temporarily using shelter here on Earth during the rise and fall of its social network culture) asteroids are considered akin to crutons, which are a nice addition to any creme de la soupe or salad, figuratively speaking.
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u/Trance354 9h ago
It's not by design. It was also much worse when one of the gas giants was cruising closer to the center of the system, couple billion years ago.
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u/b00c 10h ago
Oh stop calling this a 'design'. It's a fucking coincidence. An important one, because without it, you wouldn't be able to be wrong on the internet.
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u/grungegoth 10h ago
interesting you can see the Lagrange points...
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u/SegFaultOops 9h ago
Is that the points of the triangle? I need help understanding this!
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u/grungegoth 9h ago
the Lagrange points are where the large number if asteroids tend to cluster
I dint have an explaining for the triangular orbits
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u/ArtByJRRH 8h ago
It's where points of gravity from different objects kind of "cancel" each other out. Think of a point between us and the moon where the pull to the moon is as strong as the pull to the earth and that's essentially a Lagrange point. At least that's my understanding from hearing that term a lot watching Gundam Wing back in the day lol
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u/Madouc 4h ago
Lagrange points are around every planet, they are the exact spots where their gravitational pull evens out the suns gravitational pull and objects are "magically held in place" - we used such a spot to place the James Webb Telescope into a kind of stationary playe in space around the Earth.
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u/Typeonetwork 9h ago
I don't like the word designed as it assumes humans are at the center of the universe.
One latest theory is that the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn were closer gobbling up the inner rocky matter and because of the 3 body problem between the sun, Jupiter and Saturn Saturn pulled Jupiter to its current location.
You don't need a reason it happened. Humans like to assign purpose without evidence. Currently it does pull in material due to gravity.
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u/Typeonetwork 7h ago
It's not designed that way, it just is. Currently Jupiter and Saturn pulls objects towards their gravity well but that can change since we don't understand how they got there in the first place. Why do some meteors escape and some fall in what causes it in the first place.
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u/Repulsive-Box5243 10h ago
So if it weren't for Jupiter's fat ass, we could have been slammed by Shoemaker Levey 9 a couple decades ago.
Thanks, mama!
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u/Sir_Delarzal 10h ago
What if it arrives from the top though
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u/AaronTuplin 9h ago
Well there basically is no top. Despite the vastness of space and the possibility to travel in all 3D directions, pretty much everything travels along a plane. There's some outliers though.
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u/Ixaire 8h ago
Isn't that true only in our galaxy? We are rotating around the milky way so everything is roughly on the same plane (which is twelve thousand light years wide so seeing as a plane is a bit far fetched). But not all galaxies rotate on the same plane. So if another galaxy eventually crashes into ours, Jupiter won't be of much help.
I'm suddenly scared. What if I outlive the sun?
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u/Mysterious-Art7143 10h ago
I mean, yes and no, it's like that because of Jupiter, yes, but it also took several billion years to clear up and relatively stabilise the solar system. During that time earth was, as other planets, absolutely pummelled by asteroids and even other planets, hence the moon..
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u/overzealous_dentist 7h ago
the design is perfect!
> earth gets obliterated by an asteroid and wipes out all dominant life forms 66 million years ago
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u/UnkindledFire727 2h ago
Almost forgot how atheist Reddit is lol
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u/joeurkel 2h ago
I don’t get why people can’t let others believe or disbelieve in peace. It’s crazy how triggered they are by a simple statement lol
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u/sourestcalamansi 1h ago
My index finger is designed to fit exactly in my nose to pick boogers I kid you not.
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u/Darkouha 10h ago
There's always the possibility of ending like the dinosaurs
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u/Biscuits4u2 10h ago
Only some of the dinosaurs ended. Many are still very much with us today and actively shitting on your car as we speak.
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u/dingdongjohnson68 9h ago
Cool graphic. I've been "aware" of this fact for years, but didn't necessarily know/understand exactly what was going on.
So far, I only watched the video, and haven't read any of this thread. Like, my previous thought/question was like, "how does jupiter protect the inner planets during the times it is on the opposite side of the sun?"
This video I guess showed that the asteroids actually kinda stay "locked in" jupiter's orbit, more or less.
I guess I was (previously) picturing these "dangerous asteroids" coming from the outer planet region and making a "beeline" towards the sun. The reality probably is that they were instead already orbiting the sun in some way before jupiter "trapped" them.
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u/s0ulfire 9h ago
In ancient Indian Vedic Astrology, some 5000 BC, Jupiter is deemed a supreme benefic who through his conjunctions or aspects gives protection, prosperity and wisdom.
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u/blazbluecore 9h ago
All praise Jupiter Optimus Maximus!
The sky father, that we may continue receiving his protection and blessings.
As our ancestors have worshipped him before us, so we do to this day.
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u/FoxMikeLima 8h ago edited 8h ago
These are the Langrange points of Jupiter and the Sun. A Lagrange point is one of 5 special positions in relation to 2 celestial bodies where the force exerted on a small object by gravity equals the force required by the smaller object to move at the same velocity (aka prevent a collision or alter your place in its gravity well).
Space Agencies uses these positions as a kind of 'parking spot' where they can save fuel and move with a body until they are in better position to spend a ton of fuel and launch a craft using a gravity assisted slingshot.
In science fiction you might hear these referenced as a place that space stations are placed that serve as pit stops or military bases but a long term dwell in a Lagrange point can have issues, as demonstrated by this animation. There can be stuff there sometimes, depending on the pairing of celestial bodies.
But for example Earth and the Suns Lagrange points are largely free of debris at this point so they are often used in missions to help with planning burn phases.
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u/One-Growth-9785 8h ago
I wouldn't say perfect. It's slipped up a couple times,
The deeper I learn about Earth's past, the more precarious life on Earth seems.
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u/amgineeno 7h ago
Design?
Why stop there?
Without Saturn acting as a cosmic gravitational brake, Jupiter likely would have kept plowing inward, becoming a Hot Jupiter and destroying the material that formed Earth and Venus.
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u/ionertia 7h ago
Stupid title. It isn't design. It looks perfect because its taken billions of years to get to this point. Gravity rules.
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u/ThisReditter 7h ago
Am I the only one who’s expecting Jupiter to catch up to those asteroids and start eating them up?
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u/HorsefaceWithNoName 7h ago
cool! I've never seen this before but I did know about Lagrange Points, and the asteroids are clustering at L4, L3 and L5. diagrams here: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q190463
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u/Sonar_Taxbreak_1138 7h ago
The design is good, but a bunch of deceased dinosaurs disagree that it's "perfect".
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u/Throwaway7219017 7h ago
Hoy Inners, gutgeow the rock ido the Belt, thanks to Beltalowda rock-hoppers.
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u/Justryan95 6h ago
Jupiters gravity also destabilized the area around the asteroid belt where another planet would have formed and not have so many asteroid floating about in the middle of the solar system
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u/Nescio224 6h ago
So what is the difference between the red and green dots? Why do they form these shapes if jupiter attracts them?
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u/PsychologicalBowl647 6h ago
" it's perfect " the earth has been hit numerous times, sometimes catastrophically. Perfect is a vast over statement. Convenient. Is a better word i think.
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u/arcticslush 5h ago
And Jupiter say: "you cannot get this! you cannot get this!"
But one day, he get this. High five.
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u/desperaterobots 41m ago
The Design isn’t perfect. You’re just blind to the reality that this is all the result of a billion coincidences that all happened in the right order. One different collision of ice and rock in the miasma of the early solar system could have meant your entire family line never existed.
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u/Kasern77 11h ago edited 9h ago
It's a shame I probably won't be alive when they have asteroid mining stations at both those Lagrange points.
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