"If that is true, then everything that we see, at least on timescales of tens of millions of years and shorter, is driven by gravity pulling plates down. And that would make the whole system a lot simpler," he said.
The mission received funding from a Dutch program for -- in van Hinsbergen's words -- "ideas that are almost certainly wrong but if they're not they will have big implications."
The samples collected have been taken to Europe for analysis and the results are expected to be known later this year.
