Mars?
We all know it: Astrology has no scientific foundation. Planets and moons may move and sway but your life and mine do not, at least not because of the aforementioned entities moving and swaying.
But, switching for a moment to the domain of astronomy and astrophysics, planets do influence other bodies in space. By ye olde Newton’s laws, the larger the planet, the greater their gravitational influence.
It appears, now, that Mars may “literally be stirring tides within the depths of our world,” as Robin Andrews of Atlas Obscura wrote recently.
Mars is actually pretty small, with a volume only a sixth of the Earth, but it is close enough to affect our blue marble. Apparently, its gravitational field is ever-so-gently pulling at Earth enough to create swirling vortices in our oceans.
So saith researchers from the University of Sydney, Australia, and the Sorbonne Université, France, in “Deep-Sea Hiatus Record Reveals Orbital Pacing by 2.4 Myr Eccentricity Grand Cycles,” published in Nature Communications the other day. (“Myr” = million years, BTW.)
These folks looked at sediment cores extracted from deep-sea sites all over the world, from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean, from Arctic waters to those just shy of Antarctica.
Andrews:
It is not just the content of the water but the way it flows that can be preserved within these cores. This information matters for a range of reasons, not least because the movement of deep-sea water affects how heat is transported around the planet, which can induce climatic swings, from minor deviations to major events, as if the oceans are fiddling with a global thermostat. For this new study, an international team of scientists took a look at almost 300 sediment cores providing a chronicle of deep-sea aquatic shifts dating back 65 million years.”
And the cores speak! They tell us a story of deep-sea currents waxing and waning with time, peaking every 2.4-million years, and repeating the cycle! Such peaks create violent maelstroms that scar the ocean floor, writing stories in those cores.
Apparently, Mars is the culprit, say the scientists:
The 2.4 Myr (g4–g3) eccentricity cycle related to the precession of the perihelions of Earth (g3) and Mars (g4), and the 1.2 Myr (s4–s3) obliquity cycle associated with the precession of the nodes of the two planets, are of particular interest.”
Whatever that means!
Andrews puts it in English:
It seems that when Mars is in a certain position in space, its relatively weak gravity field manages to wrap itself around Earth in such a way that it pulls it about, just a little. Not too dissimilar from the way in which the Moon’s gravity creates tides in Earth’s seas, Mars creates somewhat incognito tides deep within the world’s oceans on that 2.4-million-year schedule—something only detectable thanks to the buried sediments that documented these submarine swirls.”
How about that? A 2.4-million-year Mars-related whirlpool-making orbital rhythm.
But am I surprised? No.
But I am awed by a God who put all this into motion precisely. And these planets and moons have been doing their thing, as God commanded them to, for thousands of years, unwavering and unceasing. This God is a great God!
To the one who made the heavens with skill,
for unto forever is His lovingkindness;
to the one who spread out the earth over the waters,
for unto forever is His lovingkindness;
to Him who made the great lights,
for unto forever is His lovingkindness:
the sun for dominion in the day,
for unto forever is His lovingkindness,
the moon and stars for dominions in the night,
for unto forever is His lovingkindness!
Psalm 136:5–9
SOURCE: Atlas Obscura; Nature Communications
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.