This is Scientific American's 60 Second Science.

I'm Christopher Intagiyata.

The sun exerts an enormous and obvious influence on the Earth,

with its gravity and its light.

But other bodies also have a small say in on the Earth with its gravity and its light.

But other bodies also have a small say in our affairs.

We're not alone in the solar system, the other planets.

Dennis Kent, a geologist at Rutgers University

and Columbia's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.

And as we circle the sun, those other planets and also our moon exert effects on our orbit.

In fact, planetary scientists have long hypothesized that Venus and Jupiter squeeze the Earth's orbit

from circular to elliptical and back every 405,000 years.

During an elliptical orbit, when the distance from the sun varies more,

the differences between the seasons would be more extreme than when the orbit is virtually

circular. Problem is, it's been hard to verify that this oscillation between orbit shapes exists.

But Kent and his colleagues came up with a way, by boring down into the earth.

They took a rock core from the East Coast, which has excellent sediment records, good evidence of extreme

seasonal variations, they compare that core with another from Arizona, embedded with zircons.

The zircons contain trace amounts of uranium, which decays in a predictable way, meaning the

Arizona core could thus be dated based on uranium content.

Magnetic information in both cores allowed them to be lined up,

and the Arizona dates then provided a timeline for the ancient floods and droughts

...