Scientists have long sought out data to support the belief that Venus is volcanically alive. The planet’s unique atmosphere has made this quest challenging, as noxious clouds prevent visibility and the dangerously hot surface means any spacecraft that touches down can survive there for two hours maximum. Many did not expect to find this evidence until 2030 when two cutting edge spacecrafts—NASA’s VERITAS and the …
A recent study from the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters presents new speculation about the early evolution of Mars. By developing a new model of the Martian atmosphere through time, researchers found that Mars—in contrast to the frozen desert it is now—was born with lots of water and a dense atmosphere that could have harbored warm-to-hot oceans for millions of years. This discovery likens …
Below the Earth’s surface there is a layer known as the mantle, a mostly solid zone of the planet’s interior that is notoriously difficult to understand because humans have only been able to dig around seven miles deep. This is what makes a newly discovered diamond mined from 410 miles below the surface in Botswana so rare and significant: it contains inclusions (materials trapped inside …
