Active Volcano Found On Venus According To A New Study

A new analysis of archival radar images taken around three decades ago has found direct geological evidence of recent volcanic activity on the surface of Venus, also known as Earth¡¯s twin, for the first time. Researchers have observed a volcanic vent changing its shape and getting bigger in size in around eight months, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said.

The new findings are described in a study, ¡®Surface changes observed on a Venusian volcano during the Magellan mission¡¯, published in the journal Science last week. The research has been carried out by Robert Herrick of the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks (USA), and Scott Hensley of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology (USA).

NASA

Volcanoes On Venus

For years, scientists have known that numerous volcanoes cover Venus but there wasn¡¯t any evidence up till now to show if any one of them is still active.

Robert Herrick said, ¡°Everyone knew that Venus would have future eruptions. However, how often eruptions occur was not known, and speculations ranged from Earth-like at several times a year, to thousands of years between eruptions. We now know that Venus is likely close to Earth-like, although extrapolating from a data set of one is always dangerous¡±.

What Are The Findings?

Scientists made the new discovery by pouring over images of Venus taken by NASA¡¯s Magellan spacecraft between 1990 and 1992. During their examination, they looked at the planet¡¯s Atla Regio area, where two of the biggest volcanoes of Venus, Ozza Mons and Maat Mons, are located. Herrick noticed a vent situated on the north side of a domed shield volcano that is part of the larger Maat Mons volcano that changed significantly in shape and size between February and October 1991.

The paper said in the February radar image, this vent appeared nearly circular and deep with steep walls, covering 2.6 sq km of area. However, in the images that were taken eight months later, the same vent had become irregular in outline, shallower and nearly filled while covering about 3.9 sq km. This indicated an eruption or flow of magma beneath the vent.

The new findings didn¡¯t come easily as Herrick had to analyse Magellan spacecraft¡¯s radar images for hundreds of hours ¡ª these images are reportedly of much lower resolution than images taken by the cameras attached to spacecraft today and are also relatively coarse. Moreover, during its mission, Magellan also changed its viewing geometry each time it flew over Venus.

¡°This adds the additional challenge of having to distinguish real changes on the ground from changes caused simply by a different viewing geometry,¡± said Herrick. Therefore, to double-check his discovery, the scientist reached out to Scott Hensley, who is a radar specialist at JPL.

Encyclopedia Britannica

Evidence Of Active Volcano

Together they created ¡°computer models of the vent in various configurations to test different geological-event scenarios, such as landslides. From those models, they concluded that only an eruption could have caused the change,¡± NASA said. However, the scientists don¡¯t rule out that the change in the vent might have occurred due to something else.

As volcanoes act like windows to provide information about a planet¡¯s interior, the new findings take scientists a step further to understand the geological conditions of not just Venus but also other exoplanets. Apart from this, the findings give us a glimpse of what more is to come regarding Venus as in the next decade, three new Venus missions would be launched, including the European EnVision orbiter and NASA¡¯s DAVINCI and VERITAS missions. Herrick is part of both EnVision and VERITAS missions.