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Scientists say knowledge from greater than 30 years in the past exhibits the planet Venus is volcanic. NASA’s Magellan spacecraft collected pictures of the planet’s floor between 1990 and 1992, and researchers not too long ago searched that knowledge to review the attainable exercise of the volcanoes within the terrain.
The researchers from the College of Alaska and the California Institute of Know-how discovered two giant volcanoes within the Atla Regio area of Venus – the highlands of the planet. Ozza and Maat Mons had been beforehand believed to be volcanoes, however the researchers recognized their volcanic vents, the outlet the place they’d erupt, and confirmed they’re two of the biggest volcanoes on the planet, in accordance with the examine, revealed in Science.
“Ozza and Maat Mons are comparable in quantity to Earth’s largest volcanoes however have decrease slopes and thus are extra unfold out,” College of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute analysis professor Robert Herrick stated in a information launch.
The researchers spent about 200 hours evaluating pictures taken all through the Magellan mission, and located the volcanic vents had modified over time, suggesting volcanic exercise. A change in a vent might imply certainly one of two issues: magma has crammed and expanded it, or magma drained from it, making the vent partially collapse.
Whereas the vent of Maat Mons expanded, indicating volcanic exercise, an earthquake might have prompted the change, in accordance with the information launch. Nevertheless, when the vents of Earth’s volcanoes change this drastically, it coincides with close by volcanic eruptions.
Whereas questions concerning the volcanoes on Venus stay, the researchers consider they’re much less energetic than those on Jupiter’s moon, Io, which “is so energetic that a number of ongoing eruptions have been imaged each time we have noticed it,” Herrick stated.
Herrick stated there are “at the least just a few eruptions per yr” on Venus.
“We will anticipate that the upcoming Venus missions will observe new volcanic flows which have occurred for the reason that Magellan mission ended three many years in the past, and we should always see some exercise occurring whereas the 2 upcoming orbital missions are gathering pictures,” he stated.
Mars may have energetic volcanoes, however “most scientists would say that you just’d most likely want to observe the floor for just a few million years to have an affordable likelihood of seeing a brand new lava stream,” he stated.
CBS Information has reached out to Herrick for extra data and is awaiting response.
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