An unexpected phenomenon convection It can help explain most of the volcanoes and other features of the Venus view.
The artist’s impression of a volcano exploding in Venus. Painting Loan: ESA / AOES Medialab.
“Nobody had really thought about the possibility of convection in Venus peel before, Lou said the University of Washington at the University of Washington, Louis Professor of Louis.
“Our calculations show that convection is possible and perhaps possible. If it is true, it gives us a new idea about the planet’s evolution.”
The convection occurs when the heated material rises to the surface of a planet and the cold materials are sinking and form a fixed conveyor band.
On the earth, the convection in the depths of the mantle provides the energy that directs the plate tectonics.
Approximately 40 km thick on the continents and 6 km thick soil bark in the ocean basins is very thin and cool to support convection.
However, Professor Solomatov and his colleague St. Louis The University of Washington in Chhavi Jain suspects that the Venus shell may have the correct thickness (perhaps 30-90 km, 30-90 km depending on the location) and may have temperature and rock composition.
To control this possibility, researchers implemented new fluid dynamic theories developed in laboratories.
Their calculations have shown that Venus’s shell can actually support convection – a whole new way to consider the geology of the planet’s surface.
In 2024, scientists used a similar approach to determine that the convection did not occur in the Mercury mantle, because this planet has been very small and has been cooling out since its formation 4.5 billion years ago.
Venus is a warm planet both inside and outside. Surface temperatures reach 465 degrees Celsius (870 degrees Fahrenheit), and the volcanoes and other surface properties show clear melting symptoms.
Scientists have long wondered how to transfer heat from the planet to the surface.
“Convection in the shell may be an important missing mechanism, Prof said Professor Solomatov.
“Convection near the surface may also affect the type and settlement of volcanoes on the surface of the Venus.”
The authors hopes that Venus’s future tasks can provide more detailed data on the intensity and temperature in the shell.
If the convection occurs as expected, some areas of the shell should be warmer and less dense than others, differences that can be detected using high resolution gravity measurements.
But perhaps even more interesting target is Pluto, a frozen dwarf planet that reaches out of the solar system.
The images in NASA’s New Horizons Mission revealed remarkable polygonal patterns similar to the license plate boundaries in the Earth in Pluto’s Sputnik Planitia region.
These polygons are formed with slow convection currents in a 4 km thick -thick nitrogen ice layer.
“Pluto is probably the second planetary body outside the world, where Pluto is probably in the solar system, the convection that directs the Tectonics can be clearly seen on the surface,” he said.
“We still have to understand a fascinating system.”
. consequences Published in the magazine Physics of Earth and Planetary interiors.
______
Viatcheslav S. Solomatov and Chhavi Jain. 2025. On the possibility of convection in the venus shell. Physics of Earth and Planetary interiors 361: 107332; doi: 10.1016/j.pepi.2025.107332
