I feel like scientists are bending the facts lately. First they discovered that there was liquid water on Mars before, and now they say that Venus once was a wet and volcanic world.
Venus Express satellite launched by ESA completed an infrared map of the Venus southern hemisphere. After analysis scientists concluded that there possible are some “continents” made of a granite. The cool thing about granite is that it forms when basalt combines with water.
Artist's impression of Venus Express satellite. Click on picture to view the small animation how Venus surface could look like. Image credit ESA.
Another discovery is that Venus at least had in the past a plate tectonics system (just like Earth!) basically light (comparing to other planet components of course :-) granite plates are flowing on the magma. Active volcanoes were not found, but quite expected, because Venus is a large planet, maybe we weren’t lucky enough to find one.
What do we have now: Mars has water for sure, Venus at least had water and even Moon has high chances of having water (we’re all waiting for LCROSS!).
Tags: astronomy, Astronomy News, ESA, space, space news, Venus, venus express, venus map, water on venus
