{"id":159565,"date":"2025-09-25T13:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T13:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/159565\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T13:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T13:07:11","slug":"venus-is-hiding-massive-underground-tunnels-that-are-much-bigger-than-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/159565\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Is Hiding Massive Underground Tunnels That Are Much Bigger Than Expected"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" <\/a>Credit: ExtremeTech.<\/p>\n

Venus and Earth are sometimes called twins because they\u2019re pretty much about the same size. They also formed in the same inner part of the solar system, out of the same materials. Venus is in fact our closest neighbor to Earth. So, you would think that they would have turned out very, very similar.<\/p>\n

Nope. Earth looks like paradise compared the hellscape that is Venus. In fact, it\u2019s so hot on Venus that you can melt lead. The temperatures on the surface of Venus are over 900 degrees Fahrenheit (480 degrees Celsius), and the planet is covered in a 15-mile-thick layer of clouds. And those clouds are made of sulfuric acid. So, it is a really crazy place \u2014 and now it just got a lot more interesting.<\/p>\n

In a new study, scientists have uncovered something new under its hellish surface: vast lava-carved tunnels that shouldn\u2019t even exist there.<\/p>\n

These are not modest cavities. They are some of the most enormous underground structures ever found in the solar system. <\/p>\n

\u201cEarth lava tubes have smaller volumes, Mars tubes have slightly bigger volumes, and then the Moon\u2019s tubes have even bigger volumes \u2014 and then there\u2019s Venus, completely disrupting this trend, displaying very, very big tube volumes,\u201d Barbara De Toffoli of the University of Padova told the audience during the Europlanet Science Congress in Helsinki<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Breaking the Rules of Planetary Geology<\/p>\n

\"A <\/a>Valentine Cave, a lava tube in Lava Beds National Monument, California shows the classic tube shape; the grooves on the wall mark former flow levels. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.<\/p>\n

Lava tubes<\/a> are familiar on Earth. They form when the surface of a lava flow hardens while molten rock continues to drain beneath, leaving behind a hollow conduit. On the Moon and Mars, weaker gravity lets them sprawl even larger. Scientists thought that rule of thumb \u2014 less gravity, bigger tubes \u2014 was universal. Venus just broke it.<\/p>\n

Venus has nearly the same gravity as Earth. Its tubes should be modest, not Moon-sized. But De Toffoli\u2019s team found the opposite. By combining radar imagery and mapping data from past missions, they identified four sinuous pit chains near giant shield volcanoes. These pits lined up with volcanic slopes, exactly where lava would have flowed. Their depth-to-width ratios matched those of collapsed lava tubes, not tectonic fractures.<\/p>\n

The sheer scale floored the researchers. Volumes inferred from the collapsed pits rival those of lunar tubes, suggesting Venus may host some of the largest subsurface cavities in the solar system. \u201cThis is already giving away the fact that there\u2019s likely something more on Venus playing a significant role,\u201d De Toffoli said.<\/p>\n

What Could Be Making These Cavities So Big?<\/p>\n

One explanation could be Venus\u2019s extreme environment. With crushing surface pressures and temperatures hot enough to melt lead, lava may behave differently than anywhere else. De Toffoli suggested that \u201cdue to the very high pressure, there\u2019s an overall flattening out of the tubes, instead of having a very intense erosion at the floor that usually happens on other planets,\u201d according to New Scientist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That would mean Venusian lava tubes are not just anomalies \u2014 they are windows into how volcanism adapts under alien physics. They could also help explain how the planet\u2019s surface transformed into a volcanic wasteland.<\/p>\n

The discovery comes with practical stakes too. On the Moon and Mars, space agencies eye lava tubes as natural bunkers for future astronauts. On Venus, where surface missions fry in hours, such cavities could someday be targets for robotic explorers or even imagined refuges in the distant future.<\/p>\n

For now, the evidence comes only from orbital radar. To really see these tunnels, we\u2019ll need sharper eyes. The European Space Agency\u2019s EnVision mission<\/a>, slated to launch in 2031, carries a Subsurface Radar Sounder designed to peer hundreds of meters below Venus\u2019s crust. De Toffoli\u2019s team says it could finally map these alien catacombs.<\/p>\n

Billions of years ago, Venus may have had oceans<\/a>. If that\u2019s true, these giant cavities might preserve chemical traces of that lost water world. They could also reveal whether volcanism played a role in turning Venus into the runaway greenhouse we see today.<\/p>\n

Venus has more volcanoes than any other planet. And now, it also has the strangest underground tunnels we\u2019ve ever found. As De Toffoli and colleagues conclude in their paper: \u201cThe characteristics of the observed Venusian lava tubes, particularly their large scale, suggest that Venus may host some of the most extensive subsurface cavities in the solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: ExtremeTech. Venus and Earth are sometimes called twins because they\u2019re pretty much about the same size. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[72654,90,416,56,54,55,1816],"class_list":{"0":"post-159565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-lava-tubes","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom","14":"tag-venus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}