Present-day volcanism on Venus might be far more pervasive than previously believed.
“This definitely is another step in the path to understanding Venus as a living, breathing world,” says planetary scientist Paul Byrne of Washington University in St. Louis, who was not involved in the work.
Despite being nearly the same size as our own planet, Venus was for a long time considered geologically dead. Still, many scientists suspected that Earth’s near twin should have comparable levels of internal heat, the main driver of things like volcanoes and quakes.
Last year, a team announced that they had spotted a volcanic vent changing shape and potentially spilling out lava in Magellan data, the first definitive evidence of such activity on our hellish sister world (SN: 3/15/23).
2024-05-27 10:00:00
Original from www.sciencenews.org