Jupiter Is At The Center Of A Nerd Debate Over Whether Or Not It's Protecting Us From Asteroids

Science is fascinating, but what almost fascinates me more is when two people can see the same data and come to two completely different conclusions. 

If only there was a somewhat recent example of that… maybe in the field of, oh, I don't know; virology.

Anyway, this is the case with a nerd debate raging on corners of X. I'm probably too dumb to understand whether the planet Jupiter's immense gravitational pull is preventing asteroids from hitting Earth or if it's going to propel a giant space rock into us at some point.

Thatt kind of sounds like the sort of thing we might want to get to the bottom of sooner than later, no?

It all started with some talk about an asteroid the size of the Great Pyramid that was scheduled to fly past Earth on Thursday but posed no threat to us.

Some thanked Jupiter, with a little model making the rounds showing how the fifth planet from the Sun has been setting a pick for us for billions of years to keep the asteroids at bay.

Hey, that makes sense to me, and I took General Astronomy my freshman year of college.

A lot of people were excited about Jupiter using its large gaseous body to protect us and tipped their caps.

However, not everyone agrees with that assessment — did they not see the GIF? — and they've got other ideas, arguing that Jupiter plays no role in keeping space debris at bay.

Instead, they argued the exact opposite: that Jupiter's gravity will chuck an asteroid straight at us if given half a chance.

Whoa, whoa, whoa… so which one is it? I don't know that I'll be able to sleep again until we get to the bottom of whether that gas giant is going to play bodyguard or slingshot an asteroid straight into us.

Well, whatever the case, I don't think we're going to have any shot of doing anything about it.