Jupiter-Like Planets Can Send Mars-Size Worlds Packing

New research suggests that if gas giants about the size of Jupiter form with an orbit that is also about the size of Jupiter's current path around the sun, each of those planets could hurl an average of eight small, rocky worlds from their system. "The history of our own planet has been heavily influenced by our big brother Jupiter," Thomas Barclay, an exoplanet scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in California, told Space.com by email. Jupiter is often described as shielding Earth from an on