For the first time, evidence of volcanic activity has been directly observed on Venus, which is known as Earth's twin planet.
The discovery of direct geological evidence of recent volcanic activity was made by scientists who studied archival radar images of Venus taken by NASA's Magellan mission over 30 years ago in the 1990s.
The images revealed a volcanic vent that underwent significant changes in shape and size in less than a year.
IN SPACE - JUNE 5: In this handout image provided by NASA, the SDO satellite captures the approach of Venus before it transits across the face of the sun on June 5, 2012 from space. The Transit of Venus involves the planet Venus crossing in front of the sun. The next pair of events will not happen again until the year 2117 and 2125. SDO/NASA via Getty Images
VERITAS Mission
The study of active volcanoes is essential to understand how a planet's interior can shape its crust and drive its evolution while affecting its habitability.
One of NASA's upcoming missions, VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, And Spectroscopy), will study Venus from surface to core to understand how it evolved into a planet with volcanic plains and deformed terrain hidden beneath a thick, hot, and toxic atmosphere.
Led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the VERITAS mission will launch within a decade to investigate Venus. This mission was selected by NASA to study Venus to get answers to various questions about the planet's interior and atmosphere.
Robert Herrick, a research professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and member of the VERITAS science team, led the search of the archival data that resulted in the discovery of direct evidence of recent volcanic activity.
Herrick said that NASA's selection of the VERITAS mission inspired him to look for recent volcanic activity in Magellan data. After approximately 200 hours of manually comparing the images of different Magellan orbits, he saw two images of the same region taken eight months apart that exhibited geological changes caused by an eruption.
With the discovery of evidence of volcanic activity on Venus, scientists can now further explore the planet and the mechanisms that led to its formation. The data that will be gathered from the VERITAS mission will help in understanding how Venus took a different path from Earth despite being about the same size.
The mission will investigate the planet from surface to core to uncover the mysteries of Venus and its unique geology.
"Additional volcanic flows downhill from the vent are visible in the second epoch images, though we cannot rule out that they were present but invisible in the first epoch due to differences in imaging geometry. We interpret these results as ongoing volcanic activity on Venus," the research team wrote in their paper.
This is a significant milestone for scientists in their quest to understand the planet's geology and evolution. With the upcoming VERITAS mission, the study of Venus will undoubtedly reveal more information about the planet's formation and unique features.
The team's findings were published in the journal Science.
