Thanks to topographic and gravitational data from the Magellan probe, which orbited the planet Venus from 1990 to 1994 , a team of scientists from the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) and Curtin University (Australia) have determined that the crust of Venus it is 20-25 kilometers thick, increasing to a maximum of 100 kilometers in the highlands (such as plateaus or large volcanic massifs).
Despite the many similarities between Venus and Earth, the geodynamic evolution of the two planets has followed very different courses. In the case of Venus, ” the solid surface layer of Venus, the lithosphere, is stable and does not show evidence of plate tectonics at present, ” explains Alberto Jiménez-Díaz, co-author of the study published in the journal Icarus .
Based on data analysis, the structure of the Venusian lithosphere varies by region, suggesting that most of its crust was formed under similar but different conditions than when most of the highlands were deployed possibly to cause of a cooling of the lithosphere. Experts reveal that the plateaus of Venus show low elastic thickness values, with thicker crust below them and the volcanic plains high elastic thickness values (cold).
Despite these new data, this planet continues to represent a mystery: “ The thermal history of Venus continues to be an enigma and there are many questions raised about the structure and evolution of its lithosphere, the answers to which would help us to understand Venus within the framework of the terrestrial planets ”, explains to Sinc Jiménez-Díaz.
