Venus has more “Volcanoes” than we thought

The findings come ahead of new NASA and European Space Agency missions to uncover more mysteries of a planet described as “Earth’s twin”. That’s because, despite being hellishly hot, Venus is the most Earth-like planet in our solar system.

Venus has long been known as a home to plenty of volcanoes – but not quite this many.

A new map of the red-hot planet, which has a surface temperature of about 450C (842F), reveals there are around 85,000 scattered over its landscape.

That’s almost 50 times more than past surveys had counted.

The triangles represent volcanoes of various sizes, the black dots are deformed volcanoes, and the yellow squares are groupings of volcanoes in ‘volcanic fields’. Pic: Rebecca Hahn, Washington University in St Louis

The huge map, published alongside research in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, was built using radar images taken by NASA’s Magellan spacecraft.

Previous studies had found evidence of volcanic activity on Venus, but the work by researchers at Washington University in St Louis marks the first time Magellan’s findings have been converted into such an extensive map.

Co-author Paul Byrne said it was “the most comprehensive map of all volcanic edifices on Venus ever compiled”.

While the Washington team does not know whether the volcanoes are active, the map could help identify possible locations for any future eruptions.

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