The researchers concluded that Mount Idunn Mons was recently active, related to heat from ongoing lava flows. Then surface cracks were found as evidence of tectonic activity that coincided with volcanic activity.
“This is the first time we have combined so many and such disparate data sets regarding the combination of recent and potentially ongoing eruptions, and recent tectonic activity, on a terrestrial planet other than Earth,” said Piero D’Incecco, a planetary scientist at D’Annunzio University in Pescara, Italy, told Space.com Saturday (11/12/2021)
Mount Idunn Mons is located in the Imdr Regio, a volcanically rich highland region on southern Venus. It is known that the planet Venus has more volcanoes than any other planet in our solar system. (Read also; Films About Natural Disasters, From Tsunamis to Volcanoes Erupting )
Previous research has shown that Venus has more than 1,600 large volcanoes, and could have more than 100,000 or even more than 1 million smaller ones. And the researchers found signs of recent Mt Idunn Mons activity.
A finding suggests that lava from active volcanoes could continue to sweep away the planet’s surface. “The possible presence of phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere is related to recent or ongoing volcanic activity,” said D’Incecco. (Read also; Football’s Ridiculous Transfer Markets: From Volcanoes to Fax Problems )
In 2010, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Venus Express spacecraft detected infrared anomalies on the upper and eastern sides of Idunn Mons indicating the presence of new volcanic deposits. This provides the first hint that the area may have seen active volcanism in the last few million years.
The researchers analyzed the spacecraft’s observations from the summit for signs of recent activity. They combined this data with laboratory studies of how volcanic rocks change when exposed to high surface temperatures and Venus’ atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide, sulfur and caustic.
Surface images of the Venusian surface captured by Venus Express and NASA’s Magellan spacecraft confirm fresh lava flows at Idunn Mons. Atmospheric data from Venus Express also found that winds were slower than expected in the lower atmosphere above the Imdr Region.
Scientists demonstrated in a recent laboratory experiment that surface rocks on Venus can change chemically much more rapidly than previously thought. Previous analysis showed that volcanic flows at Idunn Mons were, at most, 2.5 million years old and as young as 250,000 years old, new chemical analyzes show these rocks are much younger.
“Therefore, searching for potentially active volcanism sites on Venus is very important,” said D’Incecco. A number of future missions are currently planned to map Venus, including NASA’s VERITAS orbiter and ESA’s EnVision probe, if Venus is volcanically active.
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