Venus Is Alive! Scientists Find the Planet Is Still Moving and Cracking
Quick Summary
For a long time, scientists thought Venus was a geologically dead planet — meaning it had stopped changing inside long ago. Now a new study says they were wrong. Giant cracks on the surface of Venus may still be slowly growing today. The research was published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.
What Happened?
Venus is often called Earth’s twin. It is almost the same size as our planet. But it is a very different place — surface temperatures reach hundreds of degrees Celsius, and there are no oceans.
For many years, scientists thought nothing much was happening on Venus anymore. They believed its huge surface cracks — called rift valleys — formed more than 100 million years ago and had been sitting still ever since.
But researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland decided to take a much closer look. They built the first high-resolution, 3D computer models of those Venusian rift valleys. What they found was surprising.
When a rift valley is young and still moving, it has tall, wide ridges along its edges — like raised lips on a fresh cut. When a rift is old and still, those ridges flatten out over time. The team found that some of Venus’s valleys still have those tall, steep edges. That means they are likely still young — and possibly still growing.
The simulations suggest some of these rifts might be widening at a rate of 3 to 10 centimeters per year. That is about as fast as your fingernails grow, but for a whole planet, that is significant!
Why Does It Matter?
These findings are exciting for two big reasons. First, they change how scientists think about Venus. Our neighbor planet might still have active geology — and possibly even active volcanoes.
Second, these results will help scientists plan future missions to Venus. Several space agencies — including NASA and the European Space Agency — are planning robotic missions to fly past or land on Venus in the coming years. Knowing which areas are still geologically active will help scientists decide exactly where to look.
Venus is the closest planet to Earth, and understanding it better helps us understand how planets work — including our own.
Big Words
- Rift valley — a long, deep crack in a planet’s surface, formed when rock pulls apart from both sides; on Earth, the African Rift Valley is a famous example
- Tectonic — relating to the movement and shifting of large sections of a planet’s outer crust
- Geologically active — a way to describe a planet or area that is still changing because of heat and movement inside it
- Simulation — a detailed computer model that mimics how something behaves in real life
- Crustal relaxation — when rock slowly flattens and settles over millions of years after the forces stretching it have stopped
Fun Fact
Some of Venus’s rift valleys are so enormous they stretch up to 10,000 kilometers from end to end. That is roughly the same as the distance from New York City all the way to Cape Town, South Africa — and back again!
Think About It
Earth also has tectonic plates that move and shift every year. How do you think scientists figure out what is happening deep inside a planet they have never visited in person?
Sources
- ETH Zurich — Venus: Dead? Far from it
- ScienceDaily — Venus may be tearing itself apart from within
- phys.org — Young rift flanks suggest Venus remains tectonically active
- Nature Geoscience — Recent active rifting on Venus revealed by wide rift flank uplifts (DOI: 10.1038/s41561-026-02044-8)