EOS
It’s been a quarter of a century since the Magellan spacecraft burned up as it plunged into the atmosphere of Venus.
The probe’s radar mapper, which peered through the planet’s clouds, had revealed a rugged surface of high “continents,” volcanic mountains, spidery domes, and deep canyons. Scientists interpreted the chaotic landscape as evidence of massive outpourings of molten rock that repaved the planet’s surface hundreds of millions of years ago. Modern-day Venus was considered dead, or almost so—a world whose craggy face had been frozen in time. […]
“We can show beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no catastrophic resurfacing,” added Vicki Hansen, a professor of geology at the University of Minnesota Duluth. “You can absolutely re-create the crater database without catastrophic resurfacing.” Her detailed mapping of roughly a quarter of the surface, Hansen said, demonstrates that it could have been sculpted over a period of up to a few billion years.