00:04Last year, NASA's InSight lander got a bit of a surprise on Mars.
00:07There was a massive earthquake, or rather, Marsquake.
00:10It registered a magnitude 4.7, which on Earth would be relatively light, but that's a big
00:15deal on Mars because the red planet doesn't have any tectonic plates.
00:18So what caused it?
00:20Well, according to University of Oxford researchers, it had to be tectonic activity, but in a way
00:25we've not seen before.
00:26Because the Martian surface doesn't have tectonic plates, researchers initially believed
00:30it must be due to a meteor striking the surface, but Mars observations discovered that wasn't
00:35the case, leading them back to the planet's geology.
00:38With planetary physicist Benjamin Fernando saying about it, quote,
00:41We still think that Mars doesn't have any active plate tectonics today, so this event
00:45was likely caused by the release of stress within Mars crust.
00:48Those stresses are the continuing evolution of the Martian crust, with some parts cooling
00:52and shrinking faster than others.
00:54Imagine essentially what happens if a cold glass is filled with boiling water, the rigid
00:58crystal structure cracking as different parts expand under the stress.
01:02With Fernando adding, we still do not fully understand why some parts of the planet seem
01:06to have higher stresses than others, but results like these help us to investigate further.
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