Human Hobbies

Back yard Jupiter watching. I like the last paragraph of this story, it quotes the amateur astronomer who found the impact site.

In another interview, Mr. Wesley told the Sydney Morning Herald that spotting the impact mark on Jupiter made him glad the huge planet is in Earth’s neighborhood: “If anything like that had hit the Earth it would have been curtains for us, so we can feel very happy that Jupiter is doing its vacuum-cleaner job and hoovering up all these large pieces before they come for us.”

I appreciate the image of Jupiter as a really big vacuum cleaner. My emphasis.