Venus is Geologically Active!

[MeteorWayne]

NASA-Funded Research Suggests Venus is Geologically Alive WASHINGTON -- For the first time, scientists have detected clear signs of recent lava flows on the surface of Venus.

The observations reveal that volcanoes on Venus appeared to erupt between a few hundred years to 2.5 million years ago. This suggests the planet may still be geologically active, making Venus one of the few worlds in our solar system that has been volcanically active within the last 3 million years.

The evidence comes from the European Space Agency's Venus Express mission, which has been in orbit around the planet since April 2006. The science results were laid over topographic data from NASA's Magellan spacecraft. Magellan radar-mapped 98 percent of the surface and collected high-resolution gravity data while orbiting Venus from 1990 to 1994.

Scientists see compositional differences compared to the surrounding landscape in three volcanic regions. Relatively young lava flows have been identified by the way they emit infrared radiation. These observations suggest Venus is still capable of volcanic eruptions. The findings appear in the April 8 edition of the journal Science.


http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/ap ... anoes.html

 

[3488]

Thanks Wayne,

This does not surprise me at all. Thought all along that Venus was still active.

Many features look incredibly young, volcanoes with smooth flanks, some such as Maat Mons displaying what has been interpreted as having fresh ash deposits & also pristine looking lava flows.

It is only a matter of time, till we catch a cytherean volcano in eruption.

Article about Idunn Mons a 2,500 metre high, 200 KM wide shield volcano on Planetary Photojournal.

Venus Express article.

Andrew Brown.

 

[MeteorWayne]

You are right Andrew, it's certainly not a surprise, we've all suspected it all along. Still, it's good to have some real data supporting the concept! It will be another "Wait by the mailbox" week for the latest Science issue to arrive. I'm a month behind in my Science and Nature reading as it is. Need to do meteor stuff, and pay my taxes, so it will take me a while to catch up

 

[bdewoody]

Too bad there isn't anything we can do to induce the atmosphere on Venus to clear up a bit. Barring that how much data can be inferred strictly from radar imaging?

 

[kg]

I thought I heard years ago that Venus had the equivelent of a Hawaiis' worth of volcanism globally. Maybe I read that wrong or it wasn't certain yet.
Does anyone know how carbon is distributed on Venus? I know the atmosphere is mostly CO2 but does carbon exist there as a solid as well? I ask because on Earth I think of carbon deposits being formed either biologicaly like as with coal, petrolium, calcite, or in water such as methane hydrate. Venus has no water or life so what happens to carbon?

 

[EUROSUN1]

"Nasa-funded research". I find the title very misleading.

First of all the data collection with the VIRTIS instrument was entirely payed for by ESA on an ESA payed, build and owned Satellite. While the article mentions that the evidence comes from the ESA Venus-Express it doesn`t mention that ESA employees of the German Aerospace Center in Berlin are co-authors on this new work. They are ESA-funded scientists. They should have mentioned that. Especially in the original NASA article.