Latest news with #volcanoes
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
The Strange Secret Behind Venus' Pancake Volcanoes
Venus is home to some of the weirdest volcanoes in the solar system—massive, flattened domes that look like planetary pancakes left to cool on the world's blistering surface. Scientists have long suspected these 'pancake domes' formed from thick, slow-moving lava. But a new study suggests that Venus' bendy crust may be crucial to the formation of the circular mounts. The research, published earlier this month in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, focused on one particularly enormous dome, Narina Tholus, which stretches nearly 90 miles (145 kilometers) across. Using old radar data from NASA's 1990s Magellan mission, researchers built a virtual model of the dome and tested what kind of lava—and what kind of crust—could produce such a geological flapjack. Turns out, lava alone doesn't explain the domes' strange shape. 'Our models show that flexure influences dome shape,' the researchers wrote, 'in the presence of more flexure, dome tops become flatter and sides steeper.' Just like the skin of more fleshy things, Venus' crust can dimple and deform when saddled with thick lava. When researchers simulated lava flowing over a bendy lithosphere, the molten rock stopped spreading and piled up, forming flat tops with steep sides—just like Venus' pancake domes. Crucially, this model also reproduced the crustal bulges spotted around some domes in previous studies. Still, not just any lava would do. Only ultra-dense lava—more than twice the density of water and over a trillion times as viscous as ketchup, as reported by Live Science, matched both the dome shape and the surrounding deformation. The researchers think such lava could take 'up to hundreds of thousands of Earth-years' to fully settle into these colossal structures. The team's model is based on just one dome, so it's not conclusive. But upcoming missions like NASA's VERITAS or DAVINCI will provide better topographic data to test their theory across more of Venus' thousands of volcanic features. Better understanding these features could yield more insights into the formation of the hellish planet, sometimes referred to as Earth's evil twin for the way its planetary evolution split off from the timeline that made our world wet, verdant, and rife with life.
Gizmodo
23-05-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
Earth's Core Is Leaking Gold Into Volcanoes, Scientists Say
Earth's core is apparently a bit leakier than scientists expected. In a new study published in Nature, researchers describe evidence that traces of precious metals from Earth's metallic core, including ruthenium and gold, are seeping up into volcanic rocks on the surface. The University of Göttingen-led team examined lava from Hawaii's volcanic islands and discovered an unusually high concentration of a rare isotope: ruthenium-100, an isotope that's more common in Earth's core than in the rocky mantle. The isotope's presence suggested that the lava had somehow picked up material from the planet's deepest layer—more than 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) beneath your feet. 'When the first results came in, we realized that we had literally struck gold,' said Nils Messling, a geochemist at the University of Göttingen, in a university release. 'Our data confirmed that material from the core, including gold and other precious metals, is leaking into the Earth's mantle above.' Earth's core formed over 4 billion years ago and contains more than 99.999% of the planet's gold supply. But as Nature reported, previous studies indicated that some volcanic rocks consisted of material from Earth's core, raising questions about how the heck that material got to the surface. Now, thanks to ultra-high precision isotopic analysis developed by the Göttingen team, researchers were able to resolve previously undetectable differences in ruthenium isotopes—an achievement that dialed the team into the relationship between Earth's center and its most explosive sites on the surface. 'Our findings not only show that the Earth's core is not as isolated as previously assumed,' said Professor Matthias Willbold, also of the University of Göttingen, 'We can now also prove that huge volumes of super-heated mantle material–several hundreds of quadrillion metric tonnes of rock–originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to the Earth's surface to form ocean islands like Hawaii.' The team's findings indicate that Earth's supply of precious metals near the surface may owe some of its origins to this deep-seated reserve of molten rock. Studying other hotspots—think of Iceland, Japan, and other regions crammed with active volcanoes—could clarify how much of the material brought to the surface originates from the boundary between Earth's core and its mantle.
Forbes
07-05-2025
- Science
- Forbes
NASA's Spacecraft Reveals Io To Be A Hellishly Active Volcanic Moon
Io, one of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter, as seen by the Galileo probe, circa 1997. (Photo by ... More Space Frontiers/) Getty Images New data from NASA's Juno $1.2 billion spacecraft now in orbit around Jupiter reveals that the massive planet's Galilean moon of Io has recently undergone the most massive eruptions ever observed in our solar system. Only about the size of our own moon, Io is much hotter and more volcanically active than the Juno team could have ever imagined. There's nothing in our solar system that we've seen that has so many volcanoes all going off at the same time, continuously, hundreds of them, Scott Bolton, principal investigator of NASA's Juno at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, tells me at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna. Io has volcanoes all over the place, he says. Juno was able to accomplish a couple of totally new things. Because we were in a polar orbit, we saw the poles of Io for the first time and there were volcanoes all over both poles, says Bolton. There were multiple eruptions around the same area over the South Pole which suggested that maybe there was one reservoir that somehow got active, and a few eruptions all happened at the same time, he says. Io is in orbit around Jupiter, but it's far from a perfectly circular orbit. On one side of the orbit, it's a little bit closer to Jupiter than on the other side, says Bolton. Jupiter is pulling on the side that's closest to it a little bit more than the side that's far away from it and distorts its spherical shape, he says. So, Io itself is constantly being gravitationally squeezed by Jupiter, causing Io's insides to become very hot and molten and eventually erupt, says Bolton. Why is studying such a volcanic, eruptive moon like Io important? Here's this moon that's constantly spewing out volcanoes, says Bolton. By studying Io, he says, we can learn about the volcanoes here on the earth, what's similar, what's different, what are the conditions that cause these things? On 30 December 2023, the Juno spacecraft, exploring the Jovian system, approached the volcanic moon ... More Io at a distance of just 1500 km (930 miles). A similar encounter is scheduled to take place on 3 February 2024. The probe is monitoring the moon's volcanic activity getty No spacecraft has ever gone into this hazardous, high-radiation environment; the real danger is near Jupiter where we're in this elliptical, polar orbit, says Bolton. But Juno got within 1500 km above Io's surface, he says. One reason the mission is a challenge is the nature of the planet Jupiter itself. Jupiter is more massive than all the other planets in our solar system put together, says Bolton. It's got the strongest magnetic field, largest gravity field and the most ferocious aurorae, including the harshest radiation belts in the entire solar system, he says. Then sitting in the same system is another extreme object, Io, which is the most volcanic body in the solar system, says Bolton. Lava Lakes We're possibly seeing lakes of lava, possibly that are kind of crusted over, like you see in Hawaii when lava flows get crusted over and look dark, says Bolton. People walk on them, even though it's quite dangerous, because underneath is unbelievably hot lava, he says. Juno's data suggests that about 10 percent of Io's surface has these remnants of slowly cooling lava just below the surface, says NASA. As for the overall mission's success? Even though the mission had some minor hiccups, it's been a grand success. Once we got there, we saw some symptoms with the rocket motor and its fuel that made us a little nervous about whether we should fire that or not, says Bolton. We were in an orbit that would work; it was just a longer orbit and so we decided not to fire the engine and just stay in that 53-day orbit, he says. One of Juno's ten active instruments, the Microwave Radiometer (MWR) was specifically invented for the mission. We're looking at maybe flying one of these instruments right here on Earth to study our own volcanoes, says Bolton. This microwave radiometer was invented for the Juno mission to look below the cloud tops of Jupiter and understand its composition, the dynamics of its storms, he says. But when we pointed at Io, somewhat serendipitously, it allowed us to see into the rock and lava to provide the first real look inside of the moon's subsurface structure, says Bolton. A further extension notwithstanding, this coming September Juno will end its current extended mission. Launched in 2011, the spacecraft arrived at Jupiter in 2016 and has been scientifically prolific ever since. The mission represents the best of NASA ingenuity. One of the greatest things that we've been able to do as humans is figure out how to navigate around the planets and stars, says Bolton. I'm totally amazed that we're able to robotically visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and once there, go into orbit and navigate around their moons, just like driving down to the gas station, he says. In one sense, we're navigating by the stars in the same way we used to do with ancient ships, but now we're navigating between bodies of the solar system, says Bolton. Forbes How Jupiter Helped Spawn Life On Earth By Bruce Dorminey
