Jupiter Takes New Hit for the Team

For the third time in four years, Jupiter appears to have been hit by something big enough to have done a lot of damage to our planet or any other unlucky enough to be in its way. A flash on Jupiter captured by amateur astronomers is believed to have been caused by an asteroid or comet hitting the gas giant after being drawn in by its gravitational pull, reports NBC. "It's kind of a scary proposition to see how often Jupiter gets hit," says an astronomer who captured the flash on video. Some scientists believe that without Jupiter in the neighborhood to absorb cosmic threats, life on Earth would never have been able to survive. (More Jupiter stories.)