“If anything like that had hit the Earth it would have been curtains for us, so we can feel very happy that Jupiter is doing its vacuum-cleaner job and hoovering up all these large pieces before they come for us.”Whatever hit Jupiter, it happened almost exactly 15 years from the time that fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter.
Isn't it surprising though, that something believed to be the size of planet Earth could get inside the solar system and not be detected by anyone on Earth until it hit something?