Jupiter may have made Earth habitable, study finds

Without Jupiter , primitive Earth might have drifted too close to the sun , rendering it incapable of hosting life, a study from Rice University in Houston reveals.

That's one potential interpretation from new research that started with another curiosity: Scientists have long wondered why the earliest solid objects in the solar system didn't all form at the same time. Evidence from meteorites , the rocky space debris that falls to Earth, shows two distinct generations of these planet-building supplies. Though the first group formed quickly, within the first million years, the second group, which produced the rocky blocks closer to Earth, Mars, and Venus, didn’t form until 2 or 3 million years later. How enough dust remained to make this second wave of material, though, has