comet-catcher

Updated: May 12, 2025

Jupiter, owing to his great mass and his commanding situation in the system, is the chief ``comet-catcher; but he catches them not for himself, but for the sun. Yet if comets do come originally from without the borders of the planetary system, it does not, by any means, follow that they were wanderers at large in space before they yielded to the overmastering attraction of the sun.

Garrett Putman Serviss - Curiosities of the Sky