Venus once had plate tectonics similar to Earth: Study

A team of scientists led by Brown University researchers have provided evidence that Earth's sister planet Venus once had plate tectonics - a finding that opens the door for the possibility of early life on our nearest neighbour.

Venus is often referred to as Earth's twin because of similarities in size, mass, density and volume. Despite these similarities, Venus is a hellish world with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead.

Simulations conducted by Brown researchers have shown that the composition of Venus' current atmosphere and surface pressure would only have been possible as a result of an early form of plate tectonics.

The study concludes that Venus must have had plate tectonics sometime after its formation, approximately 4.5 billion to 3.5 billion years ago. This early Earth-like tectonic movement would have been limited in terms of the number of plates moving and how much they shifted. The researchers also assume that the process would have been happening on Earth and Venus simultaneously.

"One of the big picture takeaways is that we very likely had two planets at the same time in the same solar system operating in a plate tectonic regime — the same mode of tectonics that allowed for the life that we see on Earth today," said Matt Weller, the study’s lead author who completed the work while he was a postdoctoral researcher at Brown and is now at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

What's next?

NASA's upcoming DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) missions, will measure atmospheric gases, which may help solidify the study’s findings. The flying chemical laboratory will descend through the layered Venusian atmosphere to the surface of the planet in mid-2031.

Meanwhile, the researchers plan to delve deep into a key question the paper raises - What happened to plate tectonics on Venus?