Venus, which turned out to be Earth’s twins, may have died in a billion years when it was transformed into a single-plate planet.
In September 2020, an international team of researchers found “tesserae” on Venus, or regions of tectonic distortion, which indicate that the planet was born to be a viable world. Tesserae is representative of a dynamic geological activity called “plate tectonics”. On Earth, plate tectonics have helped create complex terrain and maintain a stable climate, paving the way for life and nourishing it.
But recently, another study published in Nature Astronomy showed that for at least 1 billion years, plate tectonics has not occurred.
The researchers, led by using a computer model to reproduce the effect that the 170 km-wide Mead Crater of Venus, would have been struck by an extremely large asteroid 300 million to 1 billion years ago. Mead is surrounded by two fault lines like cliffs. Models show that for this belt to form in its current state, Venus’ lithosphere – the outer rocky crust – must be much thicker than on Earth.
According to Nature, with a thick lithosphere, the ability to have a crust of many parts (i.e. tectonic plates), constantly in motion, sliding over each other, even broken in half … like Earth is very difficult. Even the models also show that Venus is a “single-leaf planet,” meaning it has a thick, even rocky crust before impact – over a billion years ago.
This crust appears to “seal” all necessary activity inside the planet’s core, making it a “great way” to live even if the planet is lucky enough to receive “vital elements” from meteors. This could be one of the factors contributing to the hellish environment of the planet, in addition to the severe greenhouse effect.
So while it may have been born as a living planet, the idea that plate tectonics occurred in the near past of Venus is impossible. In other words, we have no hope of finding the ruins of a creature hundreds of millions of years old in this world.
According to Dr. Alexander Evans, associate professor at Brown University (United States), one of the lead authors of the study, this finding further highlights the privileged situation of the Earth. As is known, Venus and Mars are also located in the habitable zone of the solar system. But an unfortunate planetary evolution turned them into two dead or extinct worlds.
