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Asked by klauds to Colm, Eoin, Joseph, Lauren, Stephen on 12 Nov 2013.
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Eoin O Colgain answered on 12 Nov 2013:
It shouldn’t make much of a difference if the other planets are there or not. The Earth is largely subject to the gravitational effects of the sun and the moon. If the moon wasn’t there we would still have tides due to the sun, but they would not be as large.
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colm bracken answered on 13 Nov 2013:
In fact there would probably be a huge difference from our human point of view. The giant planet Jupiter is great at sucking up all the dangerous leftovers from the formation of our solar system. These leftovers include asteroids and comets. Because Jupiter is so massive its strong gravity pulls these objects toward it and gobbles them up. If Jupiter were not around the Earth would be bombarded by these objects much more regularly. Since Jupiter IS there we only get large impacts every few million years now (like the one which killed the dinosaurs 665 million years ago). This allows enough time to pass for intelligent life to evolve. In fact we now think that a large gas giant planet like Jupiter might be a requirement for a planetary system if we hope to find intelligent alien life there.
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Stephen Scully answered on 15 Nov 2013:
If the other planets were not here the Earth would get lonely. It would also get hit by a lot more meteors.
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Joseph Roche answered on 16 Nov 2013:
If the other planets did not form at the same time as the Earth then things would be very different. But if the other planets just disappeared, I would have said there would be no effect on Earth. But Colm’s comment about Jupiter protecting us is entirely right. I would not have thought of that.
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