Why is the existence of Saturn and Jupiter important for life on Earth?

According to the European Space Agency, humans have been searching for the stars for a long time in the past, with astronomical history dating back to the Assyro-Babylonians around 1,000 BC.

Each planet in our Solar System revolves around the Sun in a moving orbit. Currently, the Earth's orbit is very close to a circle (within space distance) - the Earth's orbit varies at most about 2% from the average. This relatively low degree of variability is what allowed life to form on Earth as our planet would never be too far or too close to the Sun. According to The Measure of Things, Earth is kept in this orbit through gravity caused by the Sun's mass.

But there are other heavy matter floating around our Solar System that also impact Earth's orbit, like Jupiter and Saturn - the two largest planets in the Milky Way, which are about twice as massive, respectively. 318 times and 95 times Earth. According to Space, these giant planets help position the inner Solar System planets in their rightful place and protect them from collisions with asteroids and other massive objects in the universe. .

Jupiter - The largest planet in the Solar System.

The Solar System's Vacuum Cleaner

Since scientists were clearly not present in the early days of our Milky Way, they often look for evidence from other planetary systems to uncover the secrets of our own history. One thing they have discovered is that giant planets like Jupiter can attract smaller planetary bodies as they drift toward their central Sun. This has earned them the nickname "the vacuum cleaner of the Solar System", as it sucks up other planets or small bodies with which it comes into contact.

Jupiter, although it is the largest planet, it is not the only guardian of the Earth in our Solar System. In a study designed to illustrate how Earth and other planets would exist without the Solar System's two largest planets, a NASA researcher conducted a simulation experiment. simulate using what we know about the influence of these planets.

What he discovered was that without Saturn, our planet would also have more collisions with asteroids, just like if we didn't have Jupiter.

The giant planet's gravity is thought to have prevented objects floating in the asteroid belt from hitting Earth and other inner planets, as well as preventing asteroids in the belt from combining. to another planet. Jupiter can also push small objects out of the Solar System, throwing them into other orbits, according to NASA.

Planetary impact

Without Saturn, our planet's orbit would not be in relativity.

Researchers are just beginning to understand all the ways that the presence of other planets impacts life on Earth. Through studying climate patterns in our Earth's history, researchers published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and revealed more details about how Jupiter affect life on our planet.

The researchers found that in Earth's sedimentary cores, there is evidence of lakes drying up and refilling throughout Earth's history. They then matched that with changes in Earth's magnetic field, indicating changes in orbit. Because of its enormous size, Jupiter's gravity has been known to affect Earth's orbit, but what the researchers discovered was novel in this study - Jupiter has can shift Earth's orbit every 405,000 years. This process, which has been going on since the time of the dinosaurs, causes more extreme seasons on Earth and is thought to be responsible for the phenomenon seen in the pieces of Earth's core used in the experiment.

In another simulation study conducted by researchers at the University of Vienna, scientists found that without Saturn, our planet's orbit would not be in the orbit of relativity. Earth's orbit will move about 10% closer to the Sun. According to New Scientist, this distance may still have allowed the origin of life to arise, but it would certainly have been a very different life than the life we ​​are familiar with today.

In fact, even a 20-degree tilt of Saturn would cause Earth's orbit to deviate from its orbit - there will be a time of year when our planet will move closer to the Sun. than present Venus. And if Saturn changes its tilt angle by 30 degrees, then our Earth will be thrown out of the Solar System completely, according to New Scientist. At that distance, without the warmth of the Sun, life would not be possible on the blue planet.