Radio Cadena Agramonte emisiora de Camagüey
Moscow, Dec 12. Mars exerts influence over Earth's climate despite its distance from our planet and its smaller size compared to the gas giants, the Universe Today portal reported this Wednesday.
Slow changes in Earth's orbit and axial tilt, known as Milankovitch cycles, have caused alternations between ice ages and warmer periods over millions of years. Until now, it was known that planets like Venus and Jupiter influenced those cycles, but a new analysis showed that Mars also has a significant impact on them.
In an attempt to understand how Mars alters Earth's orbital variations and tilt, researchers conducted computer simulations varying the mass of the red planet from zero to ten times its current value. The results indicated that certain climate patterns critically depend on Mars' mass.
One constant that persists in all simulations is the eccentricity of the Milankovitch cycle, at 405,000 years, which acts as a metronome for Earth's climate variations and is dominated by interactions between Venus and Jupiter.
However, the shorter cycles of around 100,000 years, related to ice ages, depend on Mars. According to the scientists, when the mass of the red planet is increased in the simulations, the cycles become longer and more intense, which coincides with greater coupling between the orbital movements of the inner planets.
Likewise, they stated that the most surprising finding is that a large-scale cycle of 2.4 million years, which influences the amount of solar light Earth receives in the long term, disappears when Mars lacks mass. This suggests that the red planet is essential for that gravitational oscillation.
In addition to the eccentricity of the cycles, our planet's axial tilt, which also affects seasons and the growth of ice sheets, changes according to Mars' mass in the simulations. The experts explained that with a heavier Mars, the dominant periods of the 41,000-year cycle lengthen, which would imply very different climates.
This finding, published on the arXiv preprint service, could expand our understanding of Earth's climate as a product of a neighboring planet and not just the interaction between our planet and the Sun. It could also aid in assessing the habitability of Earth-like exoplanets. (Text and photo: RT)
