{"id":228865,"date":"2026-01-12T21:12:32","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/tiny-marss-big-impact-on-earths-climate-how-the-red-planets-pull-shapes-ice-ages"},"modified":"2026-01-12T21:12:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:12:32","slug":"tiny-marss-big-impact-on-earths-climate-how-the-red-planets-pull-shapes-ice-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/tiny-marss-big-impact-on-earths-climate-how-the-red-planets-pull-shapes-ice-ages","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Mars\u2019s big impact on Earth\u2019s climate: How the red planet\u2019s pull shapes ice ages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/tiny-marss-big-impact-on-earths-climate-how-the-red-planets-pull-shapes-ice-ages.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At half the size of Earth and one-tenth its mass, Mars is a featherweight as far as planets go. Yet new research reveals the extent to which Mars is quietly tugging on Earth\u2019s orbit and shaping the cycles that drive long-term climate patterns here, including ice ages.<\/p>\n<p>The study is <a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.1088\/1538-3873\/ae2800\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.<\/p>\n<p>Stephen Kane, a professor of planetary astrophysics at UC Riverside, began this project with doubts about recent studies tying Earth\u2019s ancient climate patterns to gravitational nudges from Mars. These studies suggest that sediment layers on the ocean floor reflect climate cycles influenced by the red planet despite its distance from Earth and small size.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At half the size of Earth and one-tenth its mass, Mars is a featherweight as far as planets go. Yet new research reveals the extent to which Mars is quietly tugging on Earth\u2019s orbit and shaping the cycles that drive long-term climate patterns here, including ice ages. The study is published in the journal Publications [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[493,219,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climatology","category-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}