Mystery impact causes Earth-size scar on Jupiter

A comet or a large block of ice supposedly could have crashed into Jupiter causing a hot scar the size of earth.

Makes you really wonder when our number is up!

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/07/...scar/index.html

Apparently, that's just Jove's job. Keeping them asteroids away from earth. With its amazingly strong gravitational field which, so, acts like a vacuum cleaner. Some folks say that Jove is one of the reasons life developed on earth and that you need a big planet like that fat sucker for life to develop in any solar system. Well, that's what I heared. Bad trip for Joves, eh? Perhaps our resident Alpha Centaurian could comment on this theory? I mean, the vacuum cleaner theory, not the bad trip theory.

The Beep posted a pic Hubble took of the scar.
Hubble pictures Jupiter's 'scar'

However like any big brother it can't be there all the time and no and again, it causes something that would have missed you to smack you on the nose...

The consensus among our space scientists on Alpha Cen is that a binary star system like ours is an essential prerequisite for life to develop. The Sun, lacking a companion, cannot have any planets that harbour intelligent life. But to be on the safe side, we have developed a giant interstellar slingshot which we use to hurl rocks at the Sun and its planets from time to time, thereby making doubly sure that our theory is correct.