While you should never judge a press release by its title, sometimes we journalists are going to give a release a more thorough reading if that title piques our curiosity. Enter the title, ‘Pack ice’ tectonics reveal Venus’ geological secrets. As a reminder, Venus has a surface temp of almost 870 degrees Fahrenheit, or 465 degrees Celcius, and has been known to melt the necessary bits of spacecraft.

Ice and Venus are not words one expects related to one another.

And this is where we have to remember, “ice” is just a state of mind, or rather a state of matter. Ice just means something that was once liquid, and rock counts. In this case, researchers led by Paul Byrne and using Magellan radar data of Venus have discovered that the rock structures in Lavinia Planitia – which roughly translates as “lava plain” – have structures that look like pack ice that has tumbled and jostled together. According to Byrne: We know that much of Venus has been volcanically resurfaced over time, so some parts of the planet might be really young, geologically speaking. But several of the jostling blocks have formed in and deformed these young lava plains, which means that the [deeper rock layers] fragmented after those plains were laid down. This gives us reason to think that some of these blocks may have moved geologically very recently – perhaps even up to today. 

In combination with other research on Venus’ modern atmosphere and structures called coronae that may be volcanic craters, there is building evidence that Venus either was geologically active very recently or still is today.

We really can’t wait for the next three Venus missions to get there and tell us what’s really going on. Since old astronomers and planetary scientists never retire, we hope to be bringing you the science from our senior homes, or at least from houses without stairs, a couple of decades from now.

More Information

‘Pack ice’ tectonics reveal Venus’ geological secrets (EurekAlert)

“A globally fragmented and mobile lithosphere on Venus,” Paul K. Byrne et al., 2021 June 29, PNAS