The big caldera Sacajawea on Venuss surface.Image: NASA/JPLScientists arent rather sure what to make of Venuss volcanoes. The planet is peppered with enormous ones (the Sacajawea caldera, revealed above, is over 100 miles throughout), however no one is quite sure whether volcanic activity on Venus continues or if the structures are now all dormant. In 2015, a group of researchers reported 37 active volcanic structures, so its possible that there is still lava burbling forth from the planets interior today. The volcanic structures have variety, too, from towering shield volcanoes to the flat-lying “pancake dome” volcanoes. And besides the volcanoes themselves, theres what they produce, ossified now in canali, which are big, dried-up channels of lava. When these canali were carved is unknown, exactly. When it starts orbiting Venus around 2030, the VERITAS mission will likely get a better sense of the worlds volcanism.

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