Hawaiian lava lessons spark new clues on Venus’s hidden volcanism
Space.com reports that evidence from Magellan radar and atmospheric gases suggests Venus may still be volcanically active today, with future NASA missions like VERITAS expected to detect recent lava flows. In parallel, researchers studying Hawaii’s 2022 Mauna Loa eruption used private and public satellites plus machine learning to map lava thickness in 3D and identify a month-long underground heat buildup before eruption; they found lava thicker than about 20 meters cooled in roughly 21 months. These findings help calibrate Earth-based volcanic models and could improve how scientists spot and date Venusian lava flows, with results slated for the June 2026 issue of the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research.