Our giant gas-ball solar neighbor took another bullet for us recently when it attracted and absorbed a shot from a 1 kilometer-wide space rock. Impressive stuff to look at through a telescope, and a good job done by the Big Guy.
After all, if not for Jupiter, that chunk of asteroid (or cometary debris) might have kept on sailing until it hit little 'ol Earth. Think too, about Comet Shoemaker-Levy and the pasting it's bits gave Jupiter some years ago and consider what that might have done to us. I'll make it easy - at best I would be chiseling this blog on clay tablets.
It's especially critical that 'Big J' was there to help, since our professional scientist-astronomers missed the ball completely.
Our sci-boys are trying to find and track all large (1 kilometer or larger) near earth objects (NEOs). So far they've found 784. Cool - but they think there's at least 100 more they haven't found yet. Like the one that hit Jupiter. Not so cool. If not for a dedicated amateur sky-gazer we wouldn't have even known about the impact. Which means if that rock had been shooting at Earth I wouldn't of had time to get out the lawn chair and appropriate refreshments to watch the show. Or perhaps to put on my peril-sensitive sunglasses ...
So, the next time you think about our buddy Jupiter (you do think about the planets don't you? It's easy, we're down to 8) remember to give appropriate thanks for covering our lovely blue terrestrial tush.
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