Venus is sometimes called Earth’s twin. That’s because the planet is a similar size to our home. It’s also made of similar stuff. And like Earth, Venus may have active volcanoes, scientists now report.
The second planet from the sun hides beneath a thick atmosphere. That has made spotting volcanic activity difficult. New observations from the Venus Express spacecraft may be evidence of volcanoes erupting on the planet. That’s the conclusion of researchers in a study published June 17 in Geophysical Research Letters.
Venus Express orbited Venus from 2006 until last year. During its mission, the robotic spacecraft detected flashes of infrared light coming from the planet’s surface. Hot objects typically emit infrared waves. That led researchers to conclude the infrared light could be coming from fresh lava. Spacecraft observations showed hot spots rapidly heat up. Later, they cooled down. These bursts happened in a region of Venus riddled with fractures. Similar cracks open up around volcanoes on Earth.
Earlier missions to Venus offered other clues to its volcanism. One mission, called Magellan, was able to peer through the planet’s clouds. It spotted mountains that looked like volcanoes. And it found evidence that lava had flowed onto the planet’s surface sometime in its past. The Pioneer Venus Orbiter, another mission to the planet, detected sulfur dioxide spikes in its atmosphere. Those spikes hinted at modern-day volcanism. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a common gas spewed by Earth volcanoes.
The evidence of active volcanoes on Venus is growing. If lava is erupting on its surface, Venus would be the third world in the solar system known to be volcanically active. The other two are Jupiter’s moon Io and, of course, Earth.
