NASA’s Magellan radar suggests volcanoes on Venus are still active

To give you a quick recap, NASA’s Magellan mission reached Venus in 1990 and was the first spacecraft that mapped the entire surface of the planet before it vanished into Venus’ atmosphere on October 12, 1994. Since then, no other spacecraft has been sent to explore Venus.

Scientists say they used new instruments to analyze the old data shared by Magellan over two years looking for volcanic activity and found out that the western flank of the Sif Mons volcano and the western part of Niobe Plantia had new lava flows, suggesting that these volcanoes were active to date.

The new observations confirm the findings of an earlier study and found that present-day Venus has widespread volcanic activity. In March last year, a group of scientists observed that a volcanic vent on the planet had changed its shape and significantly increased in size in just one year.

Davide Sulcanese of d’Annunzio University in Pescara, Italy says “by analyzing the lava flows we observed in two locations on the planet, we have discovered that the volcanic activity on Venus could be comparable to that on Earth.” Studying active volcanoes helps scientists to understand how a planet’s interior affects its crust and habitability.

In 2031, NASA is planning to send a new mission to Venus. Named VERITAS, the upcoming mission will help enable humans to study the planet’s surface and core and understand why Venus, a planet almost the same size as Earth evolved in a different way.