Exploring Volcanoes in Our Solar System

The existence of volcanism on earth has been known even to the most primitive humans and even to our ancestors. However, it is only within the past few decades that mankind's understanding of volcanic activity outside of earth has been discovered.

In this article, we will examine volcanically active worlds other than our own, beginning with those that are closest to the sun and ending with objects that are far, frigid, frozen and cold.

Venus

Ancient astronomers gazed towards Venus and saw an object of great beauty, hence why the planet bears the name of the goddess of love. Scientists studying Venus in the early 20^th century and earlier saw a world that was a sister to our own. Venus is made out of the same kind of "stuff" as our Earth, is very close to the same size as Earth, having 95% of the Earth's diameter and 80% of the Earth's mass. Thus, it was long known as "Earth's Twin."

Speculation that beneath its clouded veil lies an expansive, global tropic rain forest quickly subsided in the mid 20^th century, as remote robotic probes from Earth orbited, landed on, and mapped the planet's hidden surface with radar.

It quickly became apparent Venus is not Earth-like at all, at least not anymore. Though it may have had large amounts of water on its surface at one time, they have since been evaporated; and though it may have once had a large moon, it has since been destroyed; and though it once may have had a magnetosphere, the planet now spins too slowly on its axis to generate one.

The one kind of feature that dominates the Venusian surface are signs of volcanism. Approximately 80 percent of the planet's surface was created by lava flows. Surveys of the planet's surface conducted from orbit using radar have documented over 55,000 volcanoes on the planet's surface according to the University of Oxford. Other sources but the number at over 100,000.