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Turning back the clock, it concluded that the lumps likely arrived as giant asteroids or other rocky material that struck Mars during the early solar system generating those oceans of magma as they drove deep into the mantle bringing with them fragments of crust and mantle. The caralambos likens the patterns to shattered glass, a few large shards with many smaller fragments. The pattern is consistent with the large release of energy that scattered many fragments of material throughout the mantle. It also fits well with current thinking that in the early solar system asteroids and other planetary bodies regularly bombarded the young planets. On Earth, the crust and uppermost mantle is continuously recycled by plate tectonics pushing a plate's edge into the hot interior where through convection, hotter less dense material rises and cooler, denser material sinks. Mars by contrast lacks tectonic plates and its interior circulates far more sluggishly. The fact that such fine structures are still visible today, caralambos said, tells us Mars hasn't undergone the vigorous churning that would have smoothed out these lumps. That way, Mars could point to what may be lurking beneath the surface of other rocky planets that lack plate tectonics including Venus and Mercury.