Venus is often seen as Earth ’s hellish Gemini , being only slightly smaller than our planet but covered in a toxic acid atmosphere red-hot enough to melt trail . A young study has notice hints of a new similarity between the two major planet ; Venus might still have active vent .

former observation of Venus have divulge lava flows on the surface of the planet less than 2.5 million age older . The new paper , published inScience Advances ,   argue that some of that lava is at most a few years old .

The title comes from testing ground simulations of how lava would interact with the dense Venusian air , which has a insistence of 90 atmospheres and is mostly composed of C dioxide . The team demonstrate that the lava would be castrate quickly in those condition . Therefore , the presence   of minerals such as olivine suggests that the deposits spring within the last few eld rather than hundreds of thousands of years ago .

“ If Venus is indeed active today , it would make a great position to visit to better understand the interiors of major planet , ” lead author Dr Justin Filiberto , Universities Space Research Association ( USRA ) staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute ( LPI ) , enounce in astatement . “ For example , we could study how major planet cool and why the Earth and Venus have dynamic volcanism , but Mars does not . Future missions should be capable to see these flows and changes in the surface and provide concrete grounds of its body process . ”

In their experimentation , olivine becomes cover by iron oxide mineral such as magnetic iron-ore and hematite in a affair of hebdomad . The sketch combined the team ’s lab data with observance from the European probe Venus Express , which orbited the planet until 2014 .

confirm the findings might not be an easy task . Venus ' thick cloud cover does n’t let for unimpeded observations from electron orbit , so we ca n’t plainly see a volcano erupting . Therefore , craft have to use infrared instruments to   detect gain in temperature on the already - scorching Venusian control surface . The Akatsuki spacecraft currently orbiting Venus used to have an instrument commit to that sort of observation but it no longer works .

So , are Earth and Jupiter ’s moon Io the only volcanically active worlds of the Solar System?Future missionscould hold the   answer .