Scientists have made an exciting discovery about Venus, our planet Earth’s closest planetary sibling.
Just like Earth, Venus is a rocky planet, but instead of having a surface that’s constantly changing due to shifting plates, Venus has only one continuous plate.
And yet, despite this, Venus appears to be ‘younger’ than Earth because of its surface, which doesn’t show signs of aging like ours does.
A team of researchers led by the Southwest Research Institute think they’ve found the answer to this puzzle.
According to the team’s findings, published in Nature Astronomy, it’s all about collisions from outer space and how they impacted Venus differently than Earth.
While Earth has mountains and volcanoes caused by its shifting plates, Venus’s surface was shaped by a massive amount of volcanic activity—60 times more than what’s found on Earth!
With over 80,000 volcanoes, the lava from these eruptions has frequently renewed the planet’s surface, making it look younger.
Researchers believe that in the early days of our solar system, Venus was hit by more high-speed, high-energy impacts than Earth. Being closer to the Sun, Venus moves around it faster, which supercharged these collision conditions.
Also, the objects that hit Venus were likely travelling on more eccentric paths, causing stronger impacts when they collided.
The scientists’ simulations show that these intense collisions could have melted as much as 82% of Venus’s mantle (the layer between the core and the crust), which then got mixed into a sort of global stew, heating up Venus’s core in the process.
What does this mean? Well, a superheated core might have led to all that volcanic activity, which is the reason why Venus’s surface looks so young. The extensive lava floods from these volcanoes resurfaced the planet and kept it looking fresh.
So, next time you look up at the night sky, remember that Venus, our neighboring planet, has experienced a life of constant makeovers. Its story is a hot one, filled with violent space impacts, a superheated core, and constant volcanic activity that has kept it looking far younger than its age.
What’s more exciting is that soon we’ll know even more about Venus, as NASA is planning two new missions called VERITAS and DAVINCI, and the European Space Agency is preparing another one named EnVision. These missions will provide even more data that may support these findings.
The universe is an interesting place, isn’t it?
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Source: Southwest Research Institute.
