by Jean C. Fisher

Created on: May 31, 2009   Last Updated: June 15, 2009

Earth's "Big Brother" - Jupiter

Jupiter is the gaseous giant of gaseous giants. It is the biggest planet in our solar system. Its sheer, tremendous size dwarfs all of the other planets - including our beautiful Earth home.

But Jupiter is more than simply a side-show oddity of grandiose proportions remarkable only because it's "the biggest kid at school". Our relationship with Jupiter is completely necessary to our survival as a species and a planet.

You see, as far as planets go, our Earth is the skinny, short, sickly kid on the playground. We are tiny and vulnerable and susceptible to random violent acts by cosmic "bullies" such as asteroids, comets and meteors that, with one hit, could leave our precious "blue marble" looking a lot more like Mars or the Moon.

Earth wouldn't stand a chance if not for one (admittedly, one very LARGE) thing: Our "big brother", the planet Jupiter.

Earth may be skinny, short and sickly but we have a giant big-brother who goes to the same school (okay "solar system", if you prefer) that we do and he's willing and able to protect us from almost all of those bullies.

In fact, Jupiter protects us every minute of every day. . .

He's taken lots of hits for us simply by stepping between us when the bullies take a swing. When a comet, asteroid or meteor comes our way, Jupiter is so big that it's hard to miss!

Not only that, even if he doesn't step directly between us, Jupiter tussles with the rest of the bully asteroids and meteors and runs most of them slap out of the neighborhood.

Jupiter doesn't even get his knuckles busted doing it, either. That's because he's got the ultimate "secret weapon": Gravity - and LOTS of it!

Over the past three and a half billion years or so that the Earth has been around, scientists figure there have been many comets, asteroids and other rogue bodies wandering around out there in space that might still be presenting a continuing threat to Earth every time one of their orbits brought them into close proximity to us, except that they were most likely caught in the "slingshot" effect of Jupiter's gravity and flung out beyond our solar system.

So, you see, all those bullies have to do is just come within range and, most of the time, Big Bro' Jupiter gives them the bum's rush - right out of Dodge.

A few years back, we here on Earth watched as a "string of pearls" of over 20 segments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed, one after the other, right into Big Bro'. He probably saved our collective scrawny

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