Lava poured out of a volcano on Venus, scientists find

Scientists believe they have found evidence of a recent volcanic eruption on Venus, providing unprecedented evidence that Earth's "evil twin" planet could still be geologically active.

Researchers compared radar images taken between 1990 and 1992 from space of a region where there are two large volcanoes. Within them, they discovered one had a vent that had doubled in size and changed shape over eight months in 1991 — telltale signs that it had erupted. The findings were described in a new study published in the journal Science.

Robert Herrick, a research professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said NASA's selection of the VERITAS mission, the first Venus-orbiting study since the 1980s, inspired him to look for volcanic activity. After poring over the 30-year-old Magellan mission archives for about 200 or so hours, he found the jackpot.

"I didn’t really expect to be successful," Herrick said in a statement.

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Venus has the most volcanoes of any planet in the solar system, but it was previously unclear whether they were alive or ancient geological ruins. Herrick spotted the evidence in Atla Regio, a vast highland near Venus’ equator with volcanoes Ozza Mons and Maat Mons. Planetary scientists have long-suspected the region to be volcanically active, according to NASA, but there has been no direct evidence until now.

"We speculate that a lava lake formed in the vent interior during the eight-month gap between images," Herrick said.

Scientists want to study Venus to learn more about its potential past habitability. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

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There is a caveat, however. In the paper, the authors say they're not aware of any vent on an Earth volcano with "multi-kilometer changes" that didn't also involve an eruption of molten rock. But, they said, "we cannot rule out this possibility for this Venusian vent."

Active volcanoes help scientists understand the impact that a planet’s interior has on shaping its crust, forging continents and mountains, and potentially helping life to emerge. One of NASA’s upcoming missions to Venus will delve deeply into this research. Within a decade, the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California hopes to lead VERITAS, short for Venus Emissivity, Radio science, InSAR, Topography, And Spectroscopy. The mission will send an orbiter to study the rocky planet from surface to core.

At the heart of the mission is a desire to learn how Venus, a planet roughly the same size as Earth, evolved into this planet's alter ego. Though Venus is about 30 percent closer to the sun, it's much, much hotter, with surface temperatures high enough to melt lead. The sweltering world has sulfuric acid clouds, deformed land, and a toxic atmosphere. Other missions — NASA's DAVINCI and the European Space Agency's Envision — seek to unlock the mysteries of Venus from the sky, too, with launches slated for the 2030s.

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But the future of the VERITAS project may be in jeopardy. The proposed fiscal 2024 spending plan for NASA puts it on hold without explanation.

"Until this budget, the mission was on-schedule and on-budget," according to The Planetary Society, a nonprofit space advocacy organization. "Through no fault of its own, it now faces an indefinite delay, raising the project’s overall costs, setting back our efforts to understand Venus, and disrupting our international partners’ participation in the mission."

The organization is pressing Congress to commit to a 2029 launch date for the mission as well as funding.