Mars may be about 140 million miles from Earth, but the red planet is influencing our oceans by helping to drive ‘giant eddies’, according to new research.

Scientists have analyzed sediments drilled from hundreds of deep-sea sites over the past half century to look back tens of millions of years into Earth’s past in an effort to better understand the power of deep ocean currents.

What they found surprised them. The sediments revealed that deep-sea currents weakened and strengthened over 2.4 million years of climate cycles, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

Adriana Dutkiewicz, co-author of the study and a sedimentologist at the University of Sydney, said scientists did not expect to discover these cycles and there is only one way to explain them: “They are linked to cycles in the orbital interactions of Mars and Earth around the Sun,” she said in a statement. The authors say this is the first study to make these connections.

The two planets influence each other through a phenomenon called “tuning,” which is when two orbiting bodies exert a gravitational push and pull on each other—sometimes described as a kind of harmonizing between distant planets. This interaction changes the shape of their orbits, affecting how closely circular they are and their distance from the sun.

For Earth, this interaction with Mars translates into periods of increased solar energy—which means a warmer climate—and these warmer cycles are associated with stronger ocean currentsthe report found.

While these 2.4 million year cycles affect warming and ocean currents on Earth, are natural climate cycles and are unrelated to the rapid warming the world is experiencing today as humans continue to burn fossil fuels that warm the planet, said Dietmar Müller, professor of geophysics at the University of Sydney and co-author of the study.

The authors describe these currents, or eddies, as “giant eddies” that can reach the deep ocean floor, eroding the sea floor and causing large accumulations of sediment, such as avalanches.

The scientists were able to map these powerful eddies through “breaks” in the sediment cores they analyzed. Deep-sea sediments form in continuous layers during calm conditions, but strong ocean currents disrupt this, leaving a visible imprint of their existence.

Because satellite data that can visibly map changes in ocean circulation have only been available for a few decades, sediment cores — which help build a picture of the past going back millions of years — are very useful for understanding circulation changes in a warmer climate Müller told CNN.

If today’s human-caused warming continues on its current trajectory, Müller said, “this phenomenon will overshadow all other processes for a long time to come. But the geological record still provides us with valuable insights into how the oceans work in a warmer world.”

The authors suggest that it’s possible these eddies could even moderate some of the effects of a possible collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a critical ocean circulation that acts like a giant conveyor belt that carries warm water from the tropics in the distant North Atlantic.

Scientists are increasingly sounding the alarm about this critical current system. There are fears it may even be showing early signs of being on the verge of collapse, as global warming warms the oceans and melts the ice, upsetting the delicate balance of heat and salt that determines the strength of the AMOC.

With information from CNN