

Is Jupiter Eating Its Own Heart? - pwg
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/12/is-jupiter-eating-its-own-heart.html?ref=hp

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joshu
I swear to god, I am going to write an HN bot that just automatically answers
"no" to any title that has a question mark.

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awt
It's definitely a tired meme that is really losing effectiveness in terms of
getting my attention. I think the best titles tease you with a bit of insight.

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andrewfelix
Sort of off topic. But how much influence does Jupiter's gravity exert on the
rest of the solar system? If it disappeared tomorrow what effects on other
planets would we see?

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sosuke
I know that it has a great influence on the Kuiper belt
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt> but I'm not sure if it would change
us much, we might actually be safer. Or in more danger, Jupiter soaks up a lot
of junk that might have ended up in our neighborhood.

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JonnieCache
I remember being told as a child that jupiter and its gravity protected us
from the various asteroids and other mineral interlopers of the solar system,
but the following google search suggests that this is now in doubt:

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=jupiter+protection+ast...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=jupiter+protection+asteroids)

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stan_rogers
As Homer Simpson once said of alcohol, it is the cause of and the solution to
all of our problems. While it does intercept some of the nasty rocks and
snowballs, it also perturbs objects that would otherwise have been in stable
orbits. In an office environment, this would be called "making himself
indispensable".

