ESA Space Science | Venus Express | 2015 Jun 18
ESA’s Venus Express has found the best evidence yet for active volcanism on Earth’s neighbour planet.[c]Evidence for Active Volcanoes on Venus[/c][hr][/hr]
Seeing the planet’s surface is extremely difficult due to its thick atmosphere, but radar observations by previous missions to Venus have revealed it as a world covered in volcanoes and ancient lava flows.
Venus is almost exactly the same size as Earth and has a similar bulk composition, so is likely to have an internal heat source, perhaps due to radioactive heating. This heat has to escape somehow, and one possibility is that it does so in the form of volcanic eruptions.
Some models of planetary evolution suggest that Venus was resurfaced in a cataclysmic flood of lava around half a billion years ago. But whether Venus is active today has remained a hot topic in planetary science.
ESA’s Venus Express, which completed its eight-year study of the planet last year, conducted a range of observations at different wavelengths to address this important question. ...
Study Suggests Active Volcanism on Venus
Brown University | 2015 June 18
Active volcanism on Venus in the Ganiki Chasma rift zone - E.V. Shalygin et al
- Geophysical Research Letters (online 17 Jun 2015) DOI: 10.1002/2015GL064088