The surface of Venus is dotted with thousands of volcanoes, some of which may still be active today. Reexamining 30-year-old radar images captured by the Magellan spacecraft revealed new lava flows on Venus, indicating that Venus was actively volcanically active between 1990 and 1992.
NASA’s Magellan mission arrived at Venus in 1990 and became the first spacecraft to image the entire surface of Venus before crashing into the Venusian atmosphere on October 12, 1994. to explore Venus. Although the radar images captured by Magellan are more than three decades old, scientists have developed new instruments to detect the data and lead to new discoveries about this hellish planet.
Thirty-two-year-old Davide Sulcanese is a graduate student at the University of Annanzi in Italy and the lead author of a new study Paper Regarding the volcanic activity on Venus, he joked that the radar images he and his team examined were exactly his age. “This is very old data, but with new technology, we can still make it very useful even for new discoveries,” Sulcanese told Gizmodo.
The research team analyzed two sets of Magellan radar data obtained in 1990 and 1992, looking for evidence of volcanic activity. In the images, team members discovered surface changes in two areas: the western flank of Symphony, a volcano on Venus, and the western side of Niobe Planitia, a large volcanic lowland province on Venus. Scientists have previously found features associated with volcanoes in both regions, but the team behind the new study found differences in radar backscatter between different images of Magellan taken over two years. According to research published in Venus Surface, these changes may indicate new lava flows on the surface of Venus. natural astronomy.
The new findings not only support early research Regarding the volcanic activity on Venus, it also shows that volcanic activity on Venus is quite common at present. In March 2023, a group of scientists discovered that a volcanic vent on Venus had changed shape and grown significantly in size in less than a year.
This is the first sign of recent volcanic activity on Venus, but now scientists can better understand the scale of Venusian volcanism. “Our findings allowed us to estimate the flux and found that Venus is actually much more active than expected and at levels comparable to or similar to those on Earth,” Sulkanes said.
Studying active volcanoes can help scientists understand how a planet’s interior shapes its crust over the years and affects its habitability. Venus is sometimes called Earth’s twin because the two planets are nearly identical in size and mass and have similar compositions.
“By studying Venus, we can learn more about Earth,” Sulkanis said. “It’s a volcanic world, so it’s a very hostile environment, at least for us… I hope not, but maybe that’s what would happen on Earth.”
Long in the making, NASA has finally launched a new mission to Venus. VERITAS, scheduled to launch no earlier than 2031, will study the surface and core of Venus to understand how a rocky planet the size of Earth evolved on radically different paths.
more: How did water escape from Venus? A new study may solve the mystery
