(Newswire.net — January 12, 2020) — Physicists claim that rocks fly from Jupiter to Earth, “as if fired from a sniper rifle,” Daily Mail reports.
For a long time, most scientists believed that Jupiter – the largest planet in the solar system – helps protect planets closer to the sun, like Earth, and acts as a planetary shield.
But leading physicist Dr Kevin Grazier says that this theory should be set aside, because Jupiter also acts as a celestial “sniper” towards Earth.
Grazier’s research shows that the gas giant is more likely to throw rocks at the sun and the surrounding planets than to neutralize or absorb them.
He added that while Jupiter could protect Earth from some space objects, it could also redirect some of them, which are harmless to Earth, toward our planet.
The Shield Theory claims that the vast planet Jupiter, whose mass is greater than 300 times that of the Earth, sucks up all asteroids or comets that pass nearby.
But computer simulations conducted by Dr. Grazier revealed that there were nevertheless some flaws in that theory.
‘Our simulations show that Jupiter is just as likely to send comets at Earth as to deflect them away, and we’ve seen that in the real solar system,’ Dr Grazier told Gizmodo.
The research, conducted in collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of South Queensland, provided evidence that Jupiter was in fact both a shield and a sniper sling-shooting rocks towards Earth.
Scientists eventually state, however, that the claims should be taken with a bit of reserve as both theories are correct and that more detailed research is still needed.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter for more than three years, making a close approach every 53 days.