Is Venus Volcanically Active? Data from NASA's Magellan Mission Reveal Evidence of Lava Flows, Eruptions

Among other planets across the solar system, Venus is known to have more volcanoes situated on its surface. Now, scientists have found evidence that some volcanoes across the Venusian surface are indeed active.

Volcanic Activity in Venus

According to NASA, scientists monitor active volcanoes to see how the interior of a planet affects its crust, evolution, and habitability. One of the new missions of NASA, VERITAS, which targets Venus, will be focusing on that.

Rober Herrick, a research professor from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a member of the VERITAS science team, said that the selection from the VERITAS mission inspired him to search for recent volcanic activity through the data from the Magellan mission.

Herrick did not expect the search to be successful. After spending around 200 hours manually comparing shots from various orbits of Magellan, Herrick was able to spot two images of the same area that were shot eight months apart. The images exhibited geological alterations that were caused by a volcanic eruption.

NASA reports that these geological changes were spotted in the Alta region, which is a vast highland area that is close to the equator of Venus and that hosts two of the largest volcanoes on the planet. While scientists have long thought of the region as being volcanically active, there was no direct evidence to prove recent volcanic activity. While looking into the images from the Magellan, Herrick pinpointed the vent linked to Maat Mons, one of the largest volcanoes, that significantly altered from February to October 1991.

The Daily Mail also reports that the researchers think that the walls became smaller and that the volcano was almost filled to the rim. However, they were not able to tell if the material was molten and hot or if it cooled down and became solid.

The researchers also observed downhill volcanic flows in the second image. However, its presence could not be confirmed in the first one. Hence, the researchers claim that such changes may have resulted from emanating lava routing through the vent because of volcanic activity.

Vent eruptions or underground movements may have led to similar effects on earth. Both instances would happen due to nearby volcanic activity, not earthquakes. This made the researchers rule out the latter possibility.

Herrick mentioned that they were able to conclude that Venus is indeed volcanically active and that there are a few eruptions that take place each year.

The findings were described in the study published in the Science journal. Herrick also relayed the findings during the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

The Daily Mail notes that this discovery casts doubt on the idea that Earth's evil twin could foster microbial existence.

Habitability of Venus

While Venus is similar to earth in terms of being a terrestrial planet, the temperatures on its surface go as high as 867 °F. Moreover, the atmospheric pressure is around 92 times stronger than that on earth.

Scientists think that Venus may have been habitable around 700 million years ago, prior to becoming mysteriously inhabitable. Now, at present, Venus is a planet full of strong heat, grave atmospheric pressure, and corrosively acidic clouds.

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