Planetary scientists have found groundbreaking evidence of recent volcanic activity on Venus. Archives from NASA’s Magellan mission show telltale signs that Maat Mons, a 5-mile-high (8 kilometers) volcano on Earth’s hellish twin, was active in 1991.
Magellan, launched in May 1989, was the first spacecraft to map the entire surface of Venus. The mission’s radar images revealed that Venus is peppered with volcanoes, but at the time scientists couldn’t tell whether any of them were still active.
Now, a new analysis of these 30-year-old archives has detected a volcanic vent swelling with lava in the Atla Regio region, near the planet’s equator.
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