Mars Could Trigger New Ice Age on Earth, Scientists Warn

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:01]Summers disappear.

[00:00:03]Rivers turn into ice.

[00:00:05]Crops fail. [music] There's no food anymore.

[00:00:08]Many people don't survive brutal winters.

[00:00:11]Covered with snow, Earth is freezing.

[00:00:13]And that's all because of Mars.

[00:00:16]Really?

[00:00:18]Our neighbor may play a larger role in Earth's climate than we thought before.

[00:00:22]Mars is much smaller than Earth, about half its size, and has only 1/10 of Earth's mass.

[00:00:29]Because of that, scientists used to think Mars didn't really affect Earth in any serious way.

[00:00:35]But new research shows that Mars influences [music] how Earth moves in space and can even impact long-term climate changes on our planet, like ice ages.

[00:00:46]A scientist named Stephen Kane wanted to test this idea.

[00:00:51]Earlier studies suggested that Mars might affect Earth's climate through gravity, even from far away.

[00:00:58]Kane wasn't convinced at first. He thought Mars was too small and too distant for that.

[00:01:04]So, he decided to check it himself.

[00:01:07]To do that, he ran computer simulations of the solar system.

[00:01:11]They tracked how Earth's orbit and tilt change over long periods of time. We're talking about thousands to millions of years.

[00:01:19]These slow changes control how sunlight hits Earth, which directly affects the planet's climate.

[00:01:26]They play a key role in starting and ending ice ages, long periods of time when huge ice sheets cover parts of Earth.

[00:01:34]Our planet has gone through at least five big ice ages.

[00:01:38]And the current one, yes, we are living in an ice age, began about 2.6 million years ago.

[00:01:46]The first ice age started about 2 billion years ago and lasted for hundreds of millions of years.

[00:01:53]The most recent ice age is still here.

[00:01:55]Why isn't the planet frozen right now, you might ask?

[00:02:00]Because ice ages are not one long freeze. They come in waves.

[00:02:05]The cold periods are called glacials.

[00:02:08]That's when ice spreads and covers large areas.

[00:02:11]The warmer breaks in between are called interglacials. That's when some of the ice melts.

[00:02:18]Right now, Earth is in one of those warmer breaks. It started about 11,000 years ago, which is why we don't see huge ice sheets covering the planet.

[00:02:29]But, let's get back to those changes that affect the planet's climate.

[00:02:32]One of such cycles lasts about 430,000 years.

[00:02:38]During this time, [music] Earth's orbit shifts from more circular to more stretched out, and then back again.

[00:02:44]This reshapes how much energy Earth gets from the sun.

[00:02:49]Some places get more sunlight, others get less, and this affects how ice grows or melts.

[00:02:56]Over a very long time, it changes Earth's climate.

[00:03:00]So, Cain ran simulations to see how exactly Earth's orbit changes over millions of years, and found out that some of those natural cycles completely disappeared when he removed Mars.

[00:03:13]Then, Cain made Mars heavier in his simulations, and the cycle sped up because the gravity of the red planet started to pull more strongly on Earth.

[00:03:24]Apparently, even though Mars is smaller and lighter than Earth or Jupiter, its position in the solar system gives it extra influence. [music] So, how exactly does it happen?

[00:03:35]Well, Earth's axis is tilted about 23 and 1/2 degrees, and that tilt wobbles over thousands of years. This changes how sunlight hits different parts of the planet, affecting the seasons and ice growth at the poles.

[00:03:49]When scientists created computer models and made Mars heavier. They saw that Earth's tilt wobbled more slowly.

[00:03:57]This slower wobble kept seasons steadier over long periods, which [music] makes the climate way less extreme.

[00:04:05]This idea isn't just for Earth. In other solar systems, outer planets, even smaller ones, could also affect the climate of Earth-like planets, making their seasons more or less stable.

[00:04:17]In the future, this knowledge could help us find a habitable world. After all, Mars' effect on Earth's tilt and orbit has shaped life on our planet.

[00:04:28]Big changes in tilt and orbit caused ice ages.

[00:04:31]Forests got smaller and grasslands grew.

[00:04:34]This affected how animals evolved, like [music] walking upright, using tools, and living in social groups.

[00:04:41]Without Mars, Earth's climate cycles might have been very different. And life, including humans, could have developed in a very different way.

[00:04:51]We could be octopus-like creatures [music] crawling on what used to be the ocean floor.

[00:04:57]Well, anyways, as we see, Earth's climate and life are connected to the motions of planets far away.

[00:05:03]Even planets hundreds of millions of miles from us can subtly change weather patterns here.

[00:05:09]New research shows that every 405,000 years, the gravity of Jupiter and Venus tugs on Earth in a way that slowly changes its orbit.

[00:05:20]These tiny shifts affect our climate, ice ages, and the environment where animals live. Summers get hotter.

[00:05:27]Winters become colder. Dry seasons get drier and wet seasons wetter.

[00:05:34]This pattern has been happening for at least 215 million years, long before dinosaurs appeared.

[00:05:41]And it still continues [music] today.

[00:05:43]Scientists use this cycle to tell exactly when things happened in Earth's past, like when dinosaurs lived, when mammals appeared, or when fossils formed.

[00:05:53]By studying it, they can connect changes in climate and life on Earth to small movements of other planets.

[00:06:00]Jupiter and Venus have such a big effect on Earth because of their size and location. Venus is the closest [music] planet to Earth, about 162 million miles away at its farthest, and it's almost as heavy as Earth.

[00:06:14]Jupiter is much farther, but it's the largest planet in the solar system.

[00:06:19]Their gravity pulls on Earth, causing small wobbles in its orbit and gradual changes.

[00:06:25]During the high point of that cycle, tropical regions get more rain, so lakes fill up.

[00:06:31]During the low point, there's less rain and lakes stay smaller.

[00:06:36]Scientists have found that this 405,000 year cycle is the most regular astronomical [music] pattern affecting Earth's orbit and climate.

[00:06:45]And right now, we are in the middle of this cycle. The last peak happened about 200,000 years ago. These changes [music] happen very slowly over hundreds of thousands of years, but they still have a real effect on Earth's environment.

[00:07:01]But even with all this, human activity is affecting the climate much more.

[00:07:05]Right now, burning fossil fuels and adding carbon dioxide to the air affect Earth much more than the slow pull of other planets.

[00:07:14]Still, it's incredible to think that planets hundreds of millions of miles away can actually shape Earth's seasons and climate over hundreds of thousands of years.

[00:07:24]The sun and moon are super important for life on Earth, too. Almost all animals have a built-in body clock called a circadian rhythm.

[00:07:33]This internal clock is controlled by light and helps animals and people keep track of the 24-hour day.

[00:07:40]But some animals also follow the moon.

[00:07:44]Many sea [music] creatures depend on the tides, which the moon controls. So, their feeding and reproduction happen in sync with the lunar cycle.

[00:07:52]For example, reef fish eat more food around the full moon.

[00:07:57]Even land animals follow the moon.

[00:08:00]Insects are more or less active depending on the moon's phases.

[00:08:04]Some plants, like the Ephedra fiminia, also take advantage of this. It releases a sugary substance during the full moon to attract night-flying insects that help pollinate it.

[00:08:16]No wonder it's called the werewolf plant.

[00:08:20]The moon is about 239,000 mi away from Earth.

[00:08:24]It's gravity pulls on our oceans, causing tides, the regular rise and fall of sea levels.

[00:08:31]The sun also affects tides, but not as much as the moon.

[00:08:35]As Earth spins on its axis every day, tides form in two main ways.

[00:08:41]The side of the Earth facing the moon experiences [music] a high tide because the moon's gravity pulls water toward it.

[00:08:48]On the other side of Earth, there is another high tide. It happens because Earth and the moon move around each other, which makes the water move outward.

[00:08:57]Twice a month, during the full moon or new moon, spring tides occur. The moon, Earth, and sun line up, and the sun's gravity adds to the moon's pull, making tides higher than usual.

[00:09:10]About a week later, the moon and the sun are at right angles to each other.

[00:09:15]This creates [music] neap tides, which are lower than normal because the sun's gravity partially cancels out the moon's pull.

[00:09:23]This is a great example of how the moon, the sun, and Earth's rotation work together to create tides.

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