Newly Discovered Cometary Route Sneaks Past Jupiter, but Decreas

 

Astronomers have used the comet record — including 2001 RX14 (Linear) at left, captured in 2002 by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey — to model a new route for incoming comets that sneaks past Jupiter's gravity.

The pathway might even be the dominant one that delivers Oort Could comets on an Earth-bound trajectory, say the authors of a new study in Science this week — but if that's true, comets only rarely cause extinctions on Earth.

(Image credit: Mike Solontoi/University of Washington)

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