Planets move in mysterious ways. Or at least their surfaces do. Earth famously has a system of tectonic plates that drives the movement of its crust. Those plate tectonics are ultimately driven by the flow of material in the mantle – the layer directly below the crust. Now, scientists have found a slightly different deformation mechanic on our nearest sister planet – Venus.
The research, carried out by Dr. Paul Byrne of North Carolina State University and his colleagues, used data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft which visited Venus back in the 90s. While orbiting the planet, the probe collected a radar map of its surface, which is obscured by a thick atmosphere at wavelengths visible to the human eye.
One of the most famous pictures generated from Magellan’s trip to Venus was this one of Maat Mons. This NASA Magellan image was released on April 22, 1992.
Credit – NASA
In part of that radar map, the researchers noticed something interesting – a series of blocks where the crust of the planet (known as the “lithosphere”) looked like it had moved. This finding flew in the face of the convention wisdom of Venus, which held that Venus’ lithosphere was immobile.
As any good scientist knows, if the data disproves an old theory, a new theory is required. So the team set out modeling the deformation to see if they could figure out what might have caused it. The answer appears to be that he deformation is caused by the slow movement of the planet’s interior.
