Mars’ gravitational pull could be strong enough to move Earth’s oceans and shift their sediments as part of a 2.4-million-year climate cycle, researchers say. It has long been known that fluctuations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun affect the planet’s climate, and that these cycles occur over periods measured in thousands of years. Adriana Dutkiewicz and colleagues from the University of Sydney announced that they had discovered a 2.4-million-year-old “Great Cycle” that they believe was driven by Mars and influenced currents in Earth’s oceans for at least 40 million years.

Evidence of this cycle comes from nearly 300 deep-sea drill cores that reveal changes in the deposition of ocean sediments. Oceanographers predicted that precipitation would accumulate in permanent layers during periods when ocean currents were stable, but unusual currents and eddies revealed accumulations in other regions as well.

According to the team, the absence or interruption of precipitation coincides with periods when Mars’ gravity has maximum impact on Earth, slightly affecting our planet’s orbital stability. This changes the level of solar radiation and the climate, manifesting itself in stronger currents and eddies in the oceans.

Team member Dietmar Müller, also from the University of Sydney, agrees that the distance between Earth and Mars is so great that it is difficult to imagine a significant gravitational effect. “But there are many factors that can amplify even small changes. Mars’ influence on Earth’s climate is similar to the butterfly effect,” he says.

Benjamin Mills from the University of Leeds (UK) says the drill cores provide evidence for the existence of “megacycles” in global environmental change: “Many of us have observed the outcome of these cycles over millions of years in a variety of geological, geochemical processes, and including the “explosion of life” in the Cambrian period.” “biological data. This work helps solidify ideas of environmental change.”

However, Matthew England, from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said he believed the study would contribute to understanding climate cycles on a geological scale, but he was not convinced by the paper’s findings. “Given that Mars’ gravitational pull on Earth is very weak (only one-millionth of that of the Sun), I am skeptical about the connection to Mars. Even Jupiter has a stronger gravitational pull on Earth,” he says.

England also notes that even if Mars had an impact, it would be minor compared to human-caused climate change.