Jupiter - friend or foe? I: the asteroids

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether Jupiter acts as a shield or a threat to Earth by analyzing its influence on asteroid impact rates, revealing that Jupiter can both reduce and increase impact risks.

Contribution

It challenges the traditional view by quantitatively examining how a giant planet's presence affects asteroid impact frequency on Earth, showing it can enhance impact risks.

Findings

Jupiter can significantly increase asteroid impact rates on Earth.

The impact risk is more complex and less protective than previously assumed.

The impact regime under planetary influence is nuanced and requires detailed analysis.

Abstract

The asteroids are the major source of potential impactors on the Earth today. It has long been assumed that the giant planet Jupiter acts as a shield, significantly lowering the impact rate on the Earth from both cometary and asteroidal bodies. Such shielding, it is claimed, enabled the development and evolution of life in a collisional environment which is not overly hostile. The reduced frequency of impacts, and of related mass extinctions, would have allowed life the time to thrive, where it would otherwise have been suppressed. However, in the past, little work has been carried out to examine the validity of this idea. In the first of several papers, we examine the degree to which the impact risk resulting from a population representative of the asteroids is enhanced or lessened by the presence of a giant planet, in an attempt to fully understand the impact regime under which life on Earth has developed. Our results show that the situation is far less clear cut that has previously been assumed - for example, the presence of a giant planet can act to enhance the impact rate of asteroids on the Earth significantly.