Jakarta –
Scientists find recent evidence that parts of the surface Venus move like the pieces of the continents on Earth. This activity may not be driven by plate tectonics like on Earth, but could be the result of a similar process.
The findings match the emerging picture of a very living planet, in contrast to the traditional view of Venus. Europe launched a spacecraft, EnVision, to map radar and collect spectroscopic measurements of the planet’s surface and atmosphere.
“We have identified a previously unrecognized pattern of tectonic deformation on Venus, driven by interior motions like on Earth,” said lead author Paul Byrne, professor of planetary science at North Carolina State University. 2021).
“Although different from the tectonics we see on Earth, the cause of this movement is still evidence of the interior motion shown on the planet’s surface.”
Dr Byrne, Dr Richard Ghail, from Royal Holloway, University of London, Prof Sean Solomon, from Columbia University, in New York, and their team detected signs that the rocky crustal blocks in the low-lying region of Venus had rotated and moved laterally relative to each other. other.
They compared the seemingly relatively recent activity to the way ice flakes jostle in the ocean in the Earth’s polar regions.
This 100-1,000 km long block is also said to resemble the Earth’s crust at:
- Tarim and Sichuan Basins in China
- Amadeus Basin in Australia
- The Bohemian Massif that underlies most of the Czech Republic.
“This research shows that we have a lot to learn from Venus and that there is a much wider spectrum of surface mobility than just plate tectonics,” said Richard Ghail, principal investigator for the European space agency ESA’s EnVision mission.
In this study, the researchers used data collected by NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, launched in 1989 and active until 1994, to map the surface structure, which they named “campi”. This name comes from the Latin which means field or campus.
Traditionally, the lithosphere of Venus, which has a rocky outer layer, has been regarded as a continuous entity, in contrast to Earth, which is split into a mosaic of moving tectonic plates.
The Moon, Mars and Mercury are also considered to have a static lithosphere. But the findings, published in the scientific journal PNAS, suggest that Venus’ lithosphere actually has a certain degree of mobility, though not as close as Earth’s.
The results of the computer model show that molten rock and magma churning beneath the crust can produce the strains, fractures, and distortions seen in Magellanic surface images.
So, tectonic activity Venus perhaps similar to those on Earth when they first formed in an epoch during the Archean Eon between 4 or 2.5 billion years ago, when heat flows within the planet were higher and the lithosphere was thinner.
Watch Videos”NASA Plans New Mission to Planet Venus“
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(rns / agt)
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