How Other Objects in the Solar System Effect Earth's Habitability

Jupiter is by far the most influential planet gravitationally speaking in our solar system, which makes sense, because it is the biggest.  It is constantly redirecting asteroids and comets one way or another, and you could make the argument that this helps or hurts the Earth.  Overall, Jupiter's effects on Earth probably balance out to being neutral.  But what if Jupiter had formed somewhere else in the solar system?  Would Earth still be habitable if it was much closer, or much further away?  The answer is interesting, but not for the reasons that I thought.

One of the most interesting things in that article is how the Moon influences Earth.  I've watched completely reputable shows and heard quite a bit about how the Moon is so important to maintaining our climate, and without it, Earth probably wouldn't even be habitable.  The idea that a large moon is key to life is a big tenet of the Rare Earth Hypothesis.  But according to this article, a planet without a large moon should remain stable for much longer than the Earth is going to with its moon.  If the Moon suddenly disappeared today, it would wreak havoc on Earth, but if the Moon had never been there, the problem of sudden destabilization wouldn't be present.

This whole business got scientists thinking about how big planets could help or hurt the habitability of habitable planets in the inner solar system.  So, scientists began running simulations on Jupiter, the only planet that has a really noticeable gravitational effect on Earth.  They brought in closer, they brought further away, they gave it an eccentric orbit, but for the most part, Earth's orbit and axis remained about the same.  There are some interesting implications to this study, for instance, it shows that compact solar systems are less likely to host habitable worlds because gravity would imbalance a small world quicker.  It also gives credence to the idea that solar system formation is a chaotic one, and that the places planets end up is as much up to chance as it is to physics.

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Orion Spacecraft Moving to Testing

Hopefully this will one day become more than just an artist's rendition.

Right now, and for the near future, the United States has no means of getting people into space.  Hopefully this will change in the near future as the Space Launch System and the Orion space capsule move into the testing stage.  The space shuttle was a worthy experiment, but an unsuccessful one.  The whole point of a reusable spacecraft was to reduce costs, but launching the shuttle was very expensive.  And while it was useful, it couldn't go very far.  What we need is a new heavy lift rocket capable of sending people not into low Earth orbit, but out into the solar system.  That is the ultimate goal of this new program, and I am looking forward to 2021, which is when manned flights are projected to begin. 

I don't know if the asteroid capture mission will be undertaken by an Orion ship, but of all the potential missions NASA could do, that's the one I want to see the most.  Actually catching an asteroid and bringing back to be studied would be an incredible feat of technology, and of tremendous value to science.  Of course, I'm in favor of anything that brings the wonder of space exploration closer to the average person.  Space is our future, we should get used to it.

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Ringed Asteroid

Scientists have recently discovered rings around an asteroid called Chariklo.  This is certainly a big surprise, because only the large planets in our solar have ring systems, and it is certainly unprecedented for something as small as an asteroid to have it.  I suppose this isn't exactly the most groundbreaking news ever, but it is really interesting, and completely unexpected.

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