A team of scientists has created a map of the morphology of Venus, which shows details of the 85,000 volcanoes discovered on the surface of the planet. The study was published in the magazine JGR Planets on March 24th.
The researchers identified several types of volcanic landforms apparently unique to the surface of Venus, such as large circular formations, structures with radial fractures along its periphery, and clusters of focused radial fractures.
“This document provides the most complete map of all volcanic structures on Venus ever compiled,” explained Professor Paul Byrne, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
How the Venus Volcanoes Map Was Created
To create the cartographic representation of Venus, scientists used images collected by NASA’s Magellan spacecraft in the early 1990s. With the information, experts identified and classified the features and volcanic structures on Venus, which have different sizes.
The new research reveals the location and grouping of these structures on the planet, as well as comparing their spatial distributions with geophysical properties of Venus, such as the thickness of its crust.
Scientists have found that even with volcanoes on almost the entire surface of the planet, they measure about 20 to 100 kilometers in diameter, likely because of magma availability and rate of eruption.
Future missions to Venus will provide new high-resolution images that could help find these small, hidden volcanoes.