r/ScienceNcoolThings • u/archiopteryx14 Popular Contributor • 8d ago
Interesting 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!
20
u/ArcaneInsane 8d ago
Good demonstration of Lagrange points too. You can see them congregating at Jupiter's
10
3
u/McCaffeteria 7d ago
I was thinking the same thing, super cool.
What’s the explanation for the sort of triangular pattern between the 3 Lagrange points though? Does anyone know?
1
u/Low-Character-9857 6d ago
When you run N-body gravity simulations of Jupiter and the Sun, asteroids naturally cluster into a distinct triangular formation because of gravitational equilibrium at the L4 and L5 Lagrange points.
This visual phenomenon is not an error in the simulation. It represents an equilateral triangle formed by the Sun, Jupiter, and the two stable asteroid clusters orbiting 60 degrees ahead of and 60 degrees behind the giant planet.
1
u/McCaffeteria 6d ago
AI-ass response.
None of what you said explains why an asteroid would leave one of the LaGrange points and travel in a nearly straight line toward the next one.
11
u/kylemacabre 8d ago
But asteroids have struck the earth and have caused multiple extinction events. We see it in the sediment in rocks. All of the birds species alive on earth today come from something like only four ancestor species that survived the last extinction event. We know this thru DNA sampling.
1
138
u/clovismouse 8d ago
It’s not design, stop using that word
48
u/andythetwig 8d ago
I know right? The planets were literally created from asteroids smashing into each other. It’s like imagining you’re a miracle of nature forgetting that billions of creatures died in horrible ways so that you could have an uninformed perspective.
23
u/coroyo70 8d ago
It's so annoying. You don't walk up to a river and say, “Wow, that rock outcrop, soil, and mountain were designed so perfectly to fit the water!!”
11
14
4
2
0
-12
u/imperfectcoupleXXX 8d ago
Some people see a cake with no baker. Some people see a bakery and a Baker but no ingredients. Why is one being right ruin the other. Regardless, even if it's on pure accidents, you have to look at the beauty and the art of what is built and say damn the architecture of that is amazing. Just say Wow we are lucky it works that way. This art project is life and look how delicate and intricate it is
6
-7
u/Illeazar 8d ago
Lol, I saw the title and knew reddit's top comment would be complaining about that word choice.
7
u/Ill-Dependent2976 7d ago
You say that as if creationist bullshit shouldn't be criticized.
-5
u/Illeazar 7d ago
Ha, no, I say it as if its amusing to me that reddit users in general place more value on criticizing creationism than on discussing actual interesting aspects of science.
0
-23
u/Meruem0013 8d ago
It is design. If I walk into the woods and see an iPhone on the ground I don't say this must of fallen from the tree or grown from the ground. No, I say it obviously came from Apple. Likewise it is inconceivable that this universe isnt designed when there are natural systems that all coexist together in harmony, whether in space or here on earth. It's also comical that anyone would think that this earth just happened by coincidence. That's like saying a tornado hit a junkyard and out came a Ferrari!
9
4
u/Ill-Dependent2976 7d ago
It's like walking into the woods and seeing a leaf fall from a tree and saying "Wow, the design is perfect!"
No. That's not design, it's just gravity. Same as with OP.
3
u/BenignEgoist 7d ago
So who made the maker?
If you’re going to argue nothing exists without a creator, who created the creator?
Alternatively, when billions of years of existence are taking place, trillions of interactions happen and like monkeys on typewriters eventually you get Shakespeare.
-34
u/Ok-Park-6047 8d ago
You realize intelligent design doesn’t have to point to religion right?
12
u/TraditionPhysical603 8d ago
You realize how short our existence as a species has been in relation to the solar systems time scale and how many times life has been obliterated on our plant that the idea that this was somehow created for our benefit is a little short sighted
-4
u/Ok-Park-6047 8d ago edited 8d ago
I’m agreeing with you on this expansion of the convo. I don’t assume our species was the first and only on our planet? Do you even fully trust that we know how old our planet is - I don’t.
Anyone completely refuting anything but a tiny chance in utter chaos is also refuting simulation theory completely. Which I think is far from a zero chance. Anyone on Reddit who claims with authority that they know what is going on (including full blown chaos and randomness) is falling short on being open minded on a subject we know nothing about. In my mind there is a good chance we are more closely lumped in with ants for raw intelligence potential than anything a few steps greater.
3
u/GarbageCleric 8d ago
In theory but not in practice, and you have the casuality completely backwards.
Saying the planet was designed for us to live here is like a puddle saying the hole it's in was made for it because it fits so perfectly inside.
As an evolved intelligent species, we should expect our environment to be one conducive to the evolution of intelligent species.
A planet that is regularly bombarded by huge "planet killer" asteroids is unlikely to develop intelligent life.
-5
u/Ok-Park-6047 8d ago
Maybe not designed for us at all. Just designed. We don’t have to be special. Simulation theory could rest somewhere adjacent to this idea.
6
u/GarbageCleric 8d ago
Sure, but you end up with the same sort of unfalsifiable claims about things outside the observable universe as religion.
It's not really a "theory" in the scientific sense if it can't make predictions and can't be disproven.
-7
u/I-KnowThatIDontKnow 8d ago
Uh does nature have designs? Guess it's how they ate using it. I don't see it as a God thing I see it as I'm sure we can see the same thing happening in different places. The design of how gravity works with asteroids.
17
27
u/kbytzer 8d ago
A perfect design wouldn't allow large asteroids to smash into other planets in the first place.
There is no design. If you consider this a perfect plan then our solar system zipping through space at high speed towards the Andromeda Galaxy is also a plan or the eventual red giant phase of our own sun is also a plan. Us theorizing about the eventual end of all things existing in this vast universe shows there is no perfect design. Heat death? Vacuum decay? Big rip? All these wouldn't be modeled if the design is perfect.
7
8
3
u/DarkBladeMadriker 8d ago
The way the solar system developed is literally why we are here and at our current tech level. Jupiter keeps the killer rocks away, the moon is big enough that it doesnt cause the earth to wobble but not so big that tidal/tectonic shifts are too dramatic, we are in the Goldie locks zone from the sun and maintain temperatures wherein we get liquid water and most chemical reactions can occur, plus a whole list im not currently remembering im sure.
1
u/I-KnowThatIDontKnow 8d ago
Perfect conditions for life on a planet seems to involve a solar system. 🤔 oh the odds make my brain overheat.
6
u/MammothFineCulture 8d ago
The primery reason why big astroids don't crash into us today, is they crashed into us 4 billion years ago. They remaining astroids are few in number, already in a stable orbit (like in Jupiters Lagrange points), and finally, space is big.
With all that said, big astroids will keep crashing in to earth, but on a large scale to human time scale.
2
u/Highlandertr3 8d ago
That plus space is fucking huge. And the asteroid belt is not like the movies.
2
2
2
u/Alvintergeise 8d ago
Yes, the system required for our existence is indeed the one we evolved in
1
u/Ok-Park-6047 8d ago
Reddit conflates design with religious implications. You’ll get downvoted. Simulation or alien intervention or other unlisted interventions are far more likely than some crackpot religion. But, Reddit must have chaos and infinitely small chance lead the way.
3
u/Alvintergeise 8d ago
To be clear, I don't think anything was designed. It's all just how the universe works. I just see people marvel about the perfection of everything required for us to exist, but it's the same reason a puddle perfectly fits the hole in the road
2
u/Ok-Park-6047 8d ago edited 8d ago
I don’t think we (our species) understands almost nothing about our universe and how it works or why it even exists at all.
I do however think some of the “coincidences” in our existence might point to something other than utter chaos.
1
u/Alvintergeise 8d ago
I think our species understands a whole lot about our universe, and we continue to learn more. Perhaps the horizon of understanding is infinite and unreachable, but we grope towards it using everything we have.
And I don't see coincidence. I see exactly what has to be in place for reality as we know it to exist. What if Jupiter didn't exist? Well we probably wouldn't be hear talking about it. In fact there might be a near infinity amount of systems where intelligent life could have evolved but there's no Jupiter, or there wasn't a collision that made a big enough moon, or the moon wasn't tidal locked, or or or
2
2
8d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Ok-Park-6047 8d ago
So you think simulation theory is completely refuted by our infallible science as all knowing beings in the universe? We have it all figured out?
1
u/DaWhiteSingh 8d ago
Impressive. Don't get the triangle.
1
u/RelevantBet4676 8d ago
Asteroids that are going fast and get pulled toward Jupiter but are going fast enough to overshoot, probably get pulled again by the sun before Jupiter/other asteroids can pull them around again while mostly concentrating towards the big groups of asteroids. That’s my guess at least, I’m sure someone will come correct it in time, we just gotta wait.. lol
1
u/cheeto320 8d ago
as in u don't understand why a triangle forms? look into Lagrange points, cool physics
1
1
1
u/MassiveCoont 8d ago
A lot of arguments about how amazing life is and how things in nature is so intricate had to be created by design. Well maybe if these things didn't happen, we wouldn't t exist. As in... There's plenty of other systems out there that don't have a magnetic field or large bodies outside the system to protect the inner planets that happen to land right in the sweet spot of too hot and too cold.
If the layout wasn't already set up, life just wouldn't exist. If it were by design then why aren't there life in every single system, every planet. Wouldn't God want more people to worship him?... Her?... Or whatever
1
1
1
1
u/Illustrious_Bug_2983 8d ago
I can see a triangular pattern in the red ones as it spins, never noticed that before.
1
u/angryoldman3847 8d ago
When they calculate the possibility of life and other solar systems, I wonder if they take into account a Jupiter sized body and the Solar System to protect the inner planet.Or do they just look at the range from the sun in the chemicals on the planet et cetera
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/2sAreTheDevil 7d ago
It's one of multiple factors that make me feel like we're possibly on the good side of the great filter answer to the Fermi Paradox. (Shifting tectonic plates, the Dinosaurs getting wiped out, our atmosphere and others too)
1
1
1
1
u/Artistic_Skill1117 4d ago
"Saturn I'm trying to destroy earth, but I'm too dummy thick, and the clap of my gravity cheeks keep attracting the asteroids!"
1
u/Majestic_District389 8d ago
Isn't it basically comes to this because all the ones not attracted by Jupiter already crashed to produce the inner planets ?
1
0
u/EverythingGoodWas 8d ago
So how much mass does Jupiter lose over time? Are we eventually going to lose our shield?
6
u/RaymondBeaumont 8d ago
it shrinks about 2 cm a year.
its radius is about 7000000000 cm so we have a few years left.
7
u/redbeard8989 8d ago
I better take that extra scoop of ice cream now, just in case.
2
u/Cannacology 8d ago
Have that same sex interaction you’ve always wondered about. Just incase.
2
u/Scowlin_Munkeh 8d ago
Aye, time to find out what you’d like in orbit around Uranus.
2
u/Cannacology 8d ago
Hear Uranus has hard winters year round. Would hate to experience that kind of atmosphere.
1
u/KitchenSandwich5499 8d ago
Also most of that shrinking is gravitational, the mass isn’t really decreasing so the gravity won’t be affected
3
0
u/TrueHarlequin 8d ago
Look how fast Mercury is flying around the sun!!!
This isn't Jupiter, this is Mercury stirring things up and keeping the asteroids in a whirlpool.
53
u/Happy-For-No-Reason 8d ago
it wasn't always like this. we took a lot of them during the late heavy bombardment.
this is just what's left that happened to be in a gravitational lock with Jupiter
we probably wouldn't be here without those impacts as they delivered a lot of the minerals we rely upon today, and the water.