We’ve known for quite some time that molten rock gouged enormous tunnels into the surface of the Earth, the Moon, and Mars.
In fact, scientists have proposed that the vast lava tubes under the surface of the Moon and Mars could one day serve as homes for space colonists that provide shelter from space radiation and micrometeorite strikes.
Now, as New Scientist reports, researchers have confirmed that lava tubes also exist on Venus, our closest — and hellishly hot — planetary neighbor.
Surprisingly, the subterranean tunnels appear to have a lot more in common with those found on the Moon than on Earth.
It’s an unexpected finding, since Venus’ mass and gravity are more similar to the Earth than the Moon. Scientists have previously found that lava tubes tend to be larger when there’s less gravity, since their walls are less likely to collapse.
“Earth lava tubes have smaller volumes, Mars tubes have slightly bigger volumes, and then the Moon’s tubes have even bigger volumes,” said University of Padova researcher Barbara De Toffoli during the Europlanet Science Congress in Finland earlier this month, as quoted by New Scientist. “And then there’s Venus, completely disrupting this trend, displaying very, very big tube volumes.”
“This is already giving away the fact that there’s likely something more on Venus playing a significant role,” she added.
Over the years, astronomers have spotted holes and large pits dotting Venus’ surface, suggesting the existence of lava tubes. Until now, though, they were unable to rule out other geological processes that could’ve caused them.
Now, as detailed in a new paper, De Toffoli and her colleagues presented the “first compelling evidence for the existence of lava tubes on Venus.”
They found that they were not only arranged near large volcanoes, but that the pits “also develop in a direction consistent with the slope of the terrain on which they were observed, thus consistent with the hypothesis that they are the product of lava flowing on an inclined surface.”
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