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To: FredZarguna

None of us would be typing here tonight if Jupiter had moved through the asteroid belt as recently as a few million years ago.


I was thinking 5 million years ago is the blink of an eye in celestial time. The age of dinosaurs was 75 million years ago. To have Jupiter careening around the asteroid belt only 5 million years ago would have caused catastrophic meteor showers on earth.


7 posted on 12/14/2016 9:45:52 PM PST by Flick Lives (Les Deplorables Triumphant)
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To: Flick Lives
Correct.

It likely also pulled the inner planets deeper into space along with it as it moved, helping to make the Earth (eventually) habitable.

The article makes it clear that the timeline of Jupiter and Saturn's movements from nearer to further orbits happened (according to this theory) in the formative stages of the solar system. That would be 4.5 - 5 billion years ago.

The fact that the article writer got it wrong in the title, and in the first paragraph of the article as well, means it's unlikely to have been a typo, and is a sad commentary on the quality of science writing in the early 21st century.

9 posted on 12/15/2016 12:02:03 AM PST by FredZarguna (And what Rough Beast, its hour come 'round at last, slouches toward Fifth Avenue to be born?)
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