Venus Express unearths new clues to the planet's geological history
Wednesday, May 23, 2012 - 08:30
in Astronomy & Space
(Phys.org) -- ESA's Venus Express has been used to study the geology in a region near Venus' equator. Using near-infrared observations collected by the Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC), scientists have found evidence that the planet's rugged highlands are scattered with geochemically more evolved rocks, rather than the basaltic rocks of the volcanic plains. This finding is in agreement with previous studies, which used data from the spacecraft's Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) to map the planet's surface in the southern hemisphere.