linkage
Paris - Earth and its companion planet, Mars, are both enjoying a period of warm climate between their respective Ice Ages, according to a study published on Thursday in Nature, the British science weekly.
Pictures sent back by United States orbiters have shown that Mars has "dusty, water-ice-rich mantling deposits" in layers that are metres thick, it says.
"These deposits were formed during a geologically recent Ice Age that occurred from about 2,1 million to 400 000 years ago," it suggests. "Mars is at present in an 'inter-glacial' period."
Earth, too, is considered to be between two Ice Ages - the last one ended some 11 000 years ago, helping the rise of Homo sapiens as a species - but for quite different reasons, according to the study.
Mars is at present in an 'inter-glacial' period
The finger of suspicion in Earth's regular bouts of glaciation points to slight variations in the planet's orbit around the sun and a minor "wobble" in its rotation around its axis.
