GUARDIANS IN SPACE
When we read anything new that’s happening in space, it’s usually something new to us discovered by the Hubble telescope, or it’s information on another shuttle launching. But, what appeared in the New York Times News Service newspaper last week, was an incredible story we rarely hear about.
An object, no one saw coming which was thought to be a comet, crashed headlong into the planet Jupiter around July 19th leaving a “black eye” the size of the Pacific Ocean. It was the second time in fifteen years that Jupiter came in contact with a comet, which was in 1994, leaving Earth-size marks that lasted up to a year. If Jupiter had not been in its path, the comet would have struck Earth. Jupiter has spared Earth’s demise twice in less than twenty years.
Jupiter’s gravity acts as a gravitational shield deflecting incoming space junk, mainly comets, away from the inner solar system. An asteroid that impacted Earth has been thought to be what killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Anthony Wesley, the Australian amateur astronomer who first noticed the mark on Jupiter and sounded the alarm on Sunday, paid homage to the notion when he told The Sydney Morning Herald, “If anything like that had hit the Earth, it would have been curtains for us, so we can feel very happy that Jupiter is doing its vacuum-cleanser job and Hoovering up all these large pieces before they come for us.”
Others believe that Jupiter is as much a menace as a hero and throws a lot of comets out of the solar system, but also throws them in. So, it had become to be believed that Jupiter is either a menace or protector depending on where the comets are coming from.
So, whether we think of Jupiter as a menace or as a guardian of the Earth, we were spared a catastrophe that would have meant the end of life on Earth as we know it. So, we should sigh in relief that we were spared this time, and pray that there is never a next time.
Helen L. Price
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