Jupiter is flinging dangerous comets and asteroids at Earth rather than acting as its shield, a scientist has revealed.
A popular theory suggests that Jupiter acts like a gigantic protector in the solar system, sucking or deflecting dangerous debris with its tremendous mass.
But more than a decade of research has revealed that Jupiter is actually throwing asteroids towards other planets.
Astronomer Kevin Grazier, who worked at NASA, has worked for years to debunk the shield theory.
"Our simulations show that Jupiter is just as likely to send comets at Earth as deflect them away, and we’ve seen that in the real solar system,” he told Gizmodo.
Mr Grazier added that the shield theory "has been laid to rest".
He has published several papers which demonstrate the way in which Jupiter is a pernicious threat rather than a protector of our planet, including his 2008 study, "Jupiter as a sniper rather than a shield."
Mr Grazier has continued to work on a pair of companion papers, one published in the Astronomical Journal in 2018 and the other in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Journal in 2019.
The first paper looked at the complex ways in which objects in the outer solar system are affected by the Jovian planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus.
Working with collaborators from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Southern Queensland, Mr Grazier showed how objects in the scattered disc - a ring within the Kuiper Belt - are influenced by the Jovian planets.
The second looked at a specific family of icy bodies that Jupiter transforms into potentially deadly comets.
It revealed how Jupiter transforms Centaurs - a group of icy bodies in orbit beyond Jupiter and Neptune - into potentially Earth-threatening comets called Jupiter Family Comets.
Jonti Horner, a co-author of both studies, told the Gizmodo that Jupiter is in some ways a shield because “it takes things that threaten Earth and flings them away, clearing space near our planet."
But he added that the planet also "takes things that come nowhere near Earth and flings them our way, meaning it is also a threat."
