Geologists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, in the United States, have discovered that Earth and Venus have the same thickness of the earth’s crust. Research results published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The team analyzed data collected by the Magellan spacecraft, which performed detailed, full-scale radar mapping of Venus from the planet’s orbit in the 1990s.
Scientists made many calculations and came to the conclusion that the average thickness of the lithosphere is 11 ± 7 kilometers. Additionally, processes similar to those on Earth are taking place inside the planet: mantle plumes, intrusive magmatism, and exfoliation that increases heat fluxes.
According to researchers, Venus may have been similar to Earth during the Archean eon between 4 and 2.5 billion years ago.
Previously, an international team of scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies suggestedThat the Earth can “burn” in the same way as Venus. Volcanoes could be the culprit.