What specific bombardment rate would decrease long-term if Jupiter were hypothetically removed currently?
Answer
Bombardment rate from Oort cloud objects.
The consequence of removing Jupiter depends heavily on the timeframe considered. If Jupiter were hypothetically removed from its current orbital position today, the immediate and measurable effect over the long term would be a reduction in the frequency of impacts originating from the Oort cloud. This is because Jupiter's massive gravitational field is currently responsible for perturbing the trajectories of these extremely distant objects, occasionally sending some inward toward the inner solar system. Without this perturbation, those specific trajectories would cease, leading to a net decrease in bombardment derived from that distant reservoir.
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