Jupiter is the largest and most massive planet in the solar system. You can’t talk about its surface, because it doesn’t have one: Jupiter is a gas giant , a planet made up mostly of hydrogen and helium, two elements that are found in the form of gas under normal conditions. Of course, inside a gas giant the conditions are anything but normal (compared to Earth) since the heat and pressure inside it are so intense that these gases are in liquid form.
In fact, conditions in Jupiter’s core are believed to be so extreme that metallic hydrogen can be found in it, a form in which hydrogen does not literally become a metal, as its name suggests, but rather a electrical conductor.
Jupiter is 3.3 times more massive than Saturn, the next largest planet in the solar system or, from another perspective, its mass is 320 times that of Earth. You can imagine that the gravitational field of this planet is very intense and, in fact, you may have heard that, thanks to it, Jupiter is a kind of guardian that protects us from the impacts of comets and asteroids … Although the truth is a little more complex.
It’s true that Jupiter has swallowed comets and asteroids that would otherwise have ended up entering the inner solar system. On March 17 of this year an amateur astronomer caught a glow on the planet that was the result of one of these collisions.
These impacts are not an uncommon phenomenon. In 1994, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 passed too close to Jupiter and its gravity divided it into 21 pieces that ended up falling into its atmosphere and leaving marks that were visible for several months.
None of these cases would have posed a danger to the Earth, but it is not inconceivable to think that Jupiter could have saved our necks at some time. But, on the other hand, the gravity of Jupiter is the reason that many asteroids exist from the beginning.
The region that exists between Mars and Jupiter and that we know as the asteroid belt exists because, while the rest of the planets were formed from the dust and rock that had scattered through space, the gravitational influence of Jupiter prevented all that material come together to form a new planet. In its place, there is now a ring full of rocks whose orbit is susceptible to being altered towards the interior of the solar system … where we live.
So… Jupiter, thanks for the protection against comets, but under the circumstances, it’s the least you could do!
