A tiny change to the Earth’s orbit can affect the climate on Earth by altering the amount of sunlight received by different regions of the globe.

Utrecht University researchers mapped out which species lived in which time periods. With this information, they found evidence for two different cycles of die-offs, each taking up to 30% of the species alive at the time. Every 2.4-2.5 million years there was a small extinction, and on top of this, every 1 million years came a die-off too. These frequencies match up to recently discovered variations in Milankovitch cycles.