Venus’ surface is dotted with thousands of volcanoes, some of which may still be active to this day. New research into 30-year-old radar images taken by the Magellan spacecraft has revealed new lava flows on Venus, suggesting that the planet was volcanically active between 1990 and 1992.
NASA’s Magellan mission reached Venus in 1990 and became the first spacecraft to photograph the entire surface of the planet before entering the planet’s atmosphere on October 12, 1994. Since the mission’s dramatic conclusion, no other spacecraft has been dedicated to exploring Venus. Although Magellan’s radar images are more than 30 years old, scientists are developing new instruments to examine the data and derive new discoveries about the hellish planet.
Davide Sulcanese, 32, a graduate student at Italy’s University of Annunzio and lead author of the new paper, said: paper Sulcanese, who studies volcanism on Venus, jokes that the radar images he and his team examined are the exact same age as him. “This is very old data, but with new techniques it could be very useful for new discoveries,” he told Gizmodo.
The team combed through two sets of Magellan radar data acquired in 1990 and 1992, searching for evidence of volcanic activity. In the images, the team found surface changes in two areas: west of Venus’ volcano Sif Mons, and in western Niobe Planitia, a large volcanic lowland on Venus. Scientists had previously found volcano-related features in these two areas, but this time the team found changes in radar backscatter between different images taken by Magellan over a two-year period. The changes likely indicate new lava flows on Venus’ surface, says the study published Nov. 26, 2010. Natural Astronomy.
This new discovery is Previous research Not only is this discovery relevant to Venus’ volcanic activity, it also suggests that current volcanic activity on Venus is fairly widespread. In March 2023, a group of scientists discovered that a volcanic crater on Venus had changed shape and grown significantly in size in less than a year.
This was the first sign of recent volcanic activity on Venus, but scientists now have a better understanding of the scale of Venus’ volcanic activity. “Our results allow us to estimate the flow rate of volcanism and show that Venus is actually much more active than expected, with activity levels comparable to or close to those of Earth,” Sulcanese said.
Studying active volcanoes helps scientists understand how a planet’s interior forms its crust and how it affects its habitability over the years. Venus is sometimes called Earth’s twin, as the two planets are roughly the same size and mass, and have similar compositions.
“Studying Venus helps us understand Earth better,” Sulcanese says. “Venus is a volcanic world, so it’s a very hostile environment, at least for us. And although we hope not, something similar could happen to Earth.”
After years of preparation, NASA is finally sending a new probe to Venus. VERITAS, scheduled to launch after 2031, will study the planet’s surface and core to understand how this rocky planet, roughly the size of Earth, evolved in a very different way than Earth.
more: How did water escape from Venus? New research may solve the mystery
