GiraffeandZebra t1_j7uvg1g wrote on February 9, 2023 at 4:06 PM

Reply to comment by Kveldwulf in What's the importance of our solar system having so many moons? by [deleted]

I thought it not that a gas giant like Jupiter was unusual, but that gas giants like Jupiter are usually in much closer orbits. That's how it acts as a shield of sorts for us, whereas many other observed systems have their huge gas giants in close orbits.

GhostAspect_ t1_j7v0epb wrote on February 9, 2023 at 4:38 PM

Yeah, gaseous planets like Jupiter aren't too uncommon, it's just its distance from the Sun that is. As planets like those like to migrate to weeklong orbits for some reason, But because of Saturn (or maybe not, we don't know for sure) Jupiter never migrated that far into the Solar System.

VitaminPb t1_j7v435z wrote on February 9, 2023 at 5:01 PM

I suspect the reason we see gas giants closer to suns is observational bias. Most exoplanets found so far are from transit of a sun which is more frequent for short orbital periods and much more noticeable in the short observation time we have had so far.