--- title: "NASA Says Venus Is Being Remade by a Squishy Shell" description: "Using old data, NASA has discovered that Venus' mantle may be \"squishy\" and full of volcanic activity, which could explain one of its biggest mysteries." date: "2023-02-28" modified: "2023-02-28" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-venus-squishy-shell" categories: - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "JPL" - "lithosphere" - "the digest" - "Venus" --- # NASA Says Venus Is Being Remade by a Squishy Shell ![Using old data, NASA has discovered that Venus' mantle may be "squishy" and full of volcanic activity, which could explain one of its biggest mysteries.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Squish Squash Using data that's three decades old, NASA scientists say they've figured out what happens to Venus' heat when it's lost to space — and discovered that the planet's surface may be "squishy" enough for it to be hemorrhaging its internal warmth. As [NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory]() noted in a post about the new findings published in the [journal *Nature Geoscience*](), this Venusian discovery stems from astronomers trying to understand the planet's surface, which unlike Earth does not have tectonic plates to explain where its heat goes. Our planet's heat loss from its hot core is intimately tied to its tectonic plates. But because Venus demonstrably loses heat much the same way Earth does but lacks tectonic plates, planetary scientists have long questioned what exactly is causing it to lose its heat. Looking at data from NASA's Magellan mission to Venus in the early 1990s, the JPL researchers took a closer look at dozens of previously unstudied *coronae*, or "quasi-circular geological features," when trying to figure out what's going on with the planet named for the Roman goddess of love — and found that those coronae tend to be where its lithosphere is thinnest, which would denote volcanic activity underneath. "Just as a thin bedsheet releases more body heat than a thick comforter, a thin lithosphere allows more heat to escape from the planet’s interior via buoyant plumes of molten rock rising to the outer layer," the JPL blog post notes with terrific metaphorical aplomb. https://twitter.com/NASAJPL/status/1628837451405090816 ## Clean Your Plate Of the 65 understudied coronae NASA looked at, some were hundreds of miles across. "While Venus doesn’t have Earth-style tectonics, these regions of thin lithosphere appear to be allowing significant amounts of heat to escape, similar to areas where new tectonic plates form on Earth’s seafloor," Suzanne Smrekar, a senior JPL research scientist who co-wrote the *Nature Geoscience* paper, said in the update. With all these findings just from archival data, Smrekar and her team have high hopes for the forthcoming Venus Emissivity, Radio science, InSAR, Topography, And Spectroscopy (VERITAS) mission that will take an even closer look at the planet that is as hot and rocky as its namesake. With VERITAS, the scientist said, scientists will be able to "determine if volcanism really is making the lithosphere ‘squishy’ enough to lose as much heat as Earth, or if Venus has more mysteries in store." **More on strange planets:** [*Scientists Find Gigantic Planet a Quarter the Size of Its Star*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()