As early as the 1990s, NASA's Magellan spacecraft was able to bring back data from the planet Venus showing that the Earth's hellish neighbor is covered in volcanoes and lava flows. However, astronomers back then were not sure if these volcanoes are active or just the remains of the ancient formations. Recently, new research surfaced using data obtained by the Venus Express orbiter stating that lava flows in Venus are recent and can be a few years old. The research also suggests that the volcanoes on the planet are active.
The researchers were able to determine the activity of Venus' lava flow through observing olivine, a mineral that can be found on Venus. Olivine is a rock-forming mineral that quickly reacts in the atmosphere by being coated in iron oxide. They calculated that these changes in olivine will be visible to the Venus Express within a few years. According to Dr. Justin Filiberto, lead author of the study of Universities Space Research Association staff, if the planet is active nowadays, it would be a great location to further expand the understanding of the interior of Venus. For instance, planetary scientists will be able to study how planets cool down and why Earth and Venus have active volcanoes while Mars doesn't. "Future missions should be able to see these flows and changes in the surface and provide concrete evidence of its activity." He explains.
Although other planets in our solar system have volcanoes, none of them are active unlike that of Earth's. Meanwhile, some scientists argue that since it was theorized that water is present beneath Mars' polar ice cap, it can probably mean that there is an underground source of heat and in this case, it can be an underground volcano. Dwarf planets like Pluto exhibit volcanic activities, too. Cryovolcanoes (or ice volcanoes) on Pluto erupts and sprays water over the surface of the planet. This liquid water quickly freezes in the cold temperature around the planet.
White spots that are observed on dwarf planet Ceres indicates the presence of ancient volcanoes while Jupiter's moon Io is observed by spacecraft to be a hotbed for volcanic activity with more than 150 active volcanoes.
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LIGHT EMISSIONS, THE KEY TO FINDING VOLCANIC ACTIVITY IN VENUS
The hints of Venus having active volcanoes lie in its atmosphere where traces of sulfurous gases are present. Back in 2010, researchers from the European Space Agency found unusually high emissions of near-infrared light from various sites on the planet. According to the researchers, relatively old surface regions are expected to have low emissions of visible to near-infrared light after long exposure to weathering caused by the planet's extremely hot atmosphere. With this in mind, the data gathered by Venus Express from various sites suggest that there are active volcanic activities that are relatively young, approximately less than 250,000 years old.
However, scientists are still not sure of the exact ages of these lava flows probably because of the rate of how quickly volcanic rocks alter itself as a reaction to the planet's harsh atmosphere and how these alterations affect visible to near-infrared light emissions.
