For such an previous planet, Venus has a comparatively younger floor. The one method that may be is thru volcanic exercise.
The volcano Maat Mons towers over its environment on this rendering based mostly on knowledge from NASA’s Magellan probe. Credit score: NASA/JPL
Within the early years of astronomy, Venus was also known as Earth’s sister planet. However when NASA’s Mariner 2 probe made the primary flyby of the planet in 1962, scientists realized that Venus is something however earthlike. Its floor is a hellish panorama with temperatures topping 800 levels Fahrenheit (430 levels Celsius), and its environment is laced with clouds of sulfuric acid.
With extra surveys — significantly from the Magellan craft — scientists have been ready to make use of radar and peer beneath the clouds. They discovered a thriller: Venus’ floor is comparatively clean, with far fewer craters that the numbers that dot Mars, the Moon, and different our bodies within the internal solar system. This meant that the planet’s floor was a lot youthful than researchers initially thought. The rationale? Volcanoes have introduced magma up from Venus’ depths, filling in craters and forsaking a recent floor.
Planetary scientists have now concluded that round three-quarters of a billion years in the past, Venus skilled a catastrophic volcanic eruption that resurfaced a lot of the planet — main one planetary scientist to name Venus “the planet that threw up on itself.” And there’s a rising physique of proof that Venus remains to be volcanically lively at the moment. In 2023, researchers wanting by way of previous Magellan imagery reported proof that the volcano Maat Mons erupted in 1991, enlarging a close-by vent and laying down recent flows of lava.
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