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By NASA
3 min read
NASA Study Reveals Venus Crust Surprise
This global view of the surface of Venus is centered at 180 degrees east longitude. Magellan synthetic aperture radar mosaics from the first cycle of Magellan mapping are mapped onto a computer-simulated globe to create this image. Data gaps are filled with Pioneer Venus Orbiter data, or a constant mid-range value. Simulated color is used to enhance small-scale structure. The simulated hues are based on color images recorded by the Soviet Venera 13 and 14 spacecraft. NASA/JPL-Caltech New details about the crust on Venus include some surprises about the geology of Earth’s hotter twin, according to new NASA-funded research that describes movements of the planet’s crust.
Scientists expected the outermost layer of Venus’ crust would grow thicker and thicker over time given its apparent lack of forces that would drive the crust back into the planet’s interior. But the paper, published in Nature Communications, proposes a crust metamorphism process based on rock density and melting cycles.
Earth’s rocky crust is made up of massive plates that slowly move, forming folds and faults in a process known as plate tectonics. For example, when two plates collide, the lighter plate slides on top of the denser one, forcing it downward into the layer beneath it, the mantle. This process, known as subduction, helps control the thickness of Earth’s crust. The rocks making up the bottom plate experience changes caused by increasing temperature and pressure as it sinks deeper into the interior of the planet. Those changes are known as metamorphism, which is one cause of volcanic activity.
In contrast, Venus has a crust that is all one piece, with no evidence for subduction caused by plate tectonics like on Earth, explained Justin Filiberto, deputy chief of NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and a co-author on the paper. The paper used modeling to determine that its crust is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) thick on average and at most 40 miles (65 kilometers) thick.
“That is surprisingly thin, given conditions on the planet,” said Filiberto. “It turns out that, according to our models, as the crust grows thicker, the bottom of it becomes so dense that it either breaks off and becomes part of the mantle or gets hot enough to melt.” So, while Venus has no moving plates, its crust does experience metamorphism. This finding is an important step toward understanding geological processes and evolution of the planet.
“This breaking off or melting can put water and elements back into the planet’s interior and help drive volcanic activity,” added Filiberto. “This gives us a new model for how material returns to the interior of the planet and another way to make lava and spur volcanic eruptions. It resets the playing field for how the geology, crust, and atmosphere on Venus work together.”
The next step, he added, is to gather direct data about Venus’ crust to test and refine these models. Several upcoming missions, including NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) and VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) and, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency), Envision, aim to study the planet’s surface and atmosphere in greater detail. These efforts could help confirm whether processes like metamorphism and recycling are actively shaping the Venusian crust today—and reveal how such activity may be tied to volcanic and atmospheric evolution.
“We don’t actually know how much volcanic activity is on Venus,” Filiberto said. “We assume there is a lot, and research says there should be, but we’d need more data to know for sure.”
Melissa Gaskill
NASA Johnson Space Center
Media Contacts:
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Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Victoria Segovia
NASA’s Johnson Space Center
281-483-5111
victoria.segovia@nasa.gov
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Last Updated May 09, 2025 Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
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By NASA
NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 flight engineer Anne McClain is pictured near one of the International Space Station’s main solar arrays during a spacewalk.NASA/Nichole Ayers In this May 1, 2025, photo taken by fellow NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, Anne McClain works near one of the International Space Station’s main solar arrays during a spacewalk. During the May 1 spacewalk – McClain’s third and Ayers’ first – the astronaut pair relocated a space station communications antenna and completed the initial mounting bracket installation steps for an International Space Station Rollout Solar Array, or IROSA, that will arrive on a future SpaceX commercial resupply services mission, in addition to some get ahead tasks.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog.
Image credit: NASA/Nichole Ayers
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By NASA
8 Min Read NASA Telescopes Tune Into a Black Hole Prelude, Fugue
The first sonification features WR124, an extremely bright, massive star. Here, the star is shown in a short-lived phase preceding the possible creation of a black hole. NASA released three new pieces of cosmic sound Thursday that are associated with the densest and darkest members of our universe: black holes. These scientific productions are sonifications — or translations into sound — of data collected by NASA telescopes in space including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, James Webb Space Telescope, and Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE).
This trio of sonifications represents different aspects of black holes and black hole evolution. WR124 is an extremely bright, short-lived massive star known as a Wolf-Rayet that may collapse into a black hole in the future. SS 433 is a binary, or double system, containing a star like our Sun in orbit with either a neutron star or a black hole. The galaxy Centaurus A has an enormous black hole in its center that is sending a booming jet across the entire length of the galaxy. Data from Chandra and other telescopes were translated through a process called “sonification” into sounds and notes. This new trio of sonifications represents different aspects of black holes. Black holes are neither static nor monolithic. They evolve over time, and are found in a range of sizes and environments.
WR 124
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: (Herschel) ESA/NASA/Caltech, (Spitzer) NASA/JPL/Caltech, (WISE) NASA/JPL/Caltech; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Webb ERO Production Team; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) The first movement is a prelude to the potential birth of a black hole. WR124 is an extremely bright, short-lived massive star known as a Wolf-Rayet at a distance of about 28,000 light-years from Earth. These stars fling their outer layers out into space, creating spectacular arrangements seen in an image in infrared light from the Webb telescope. In the sonification of WR124, this nebula is heard as flutes and the background stars as bells. At the center of WR124, where the scan begins before moving outward, is a hot core of the star that may explode as a supernova and potentially collapse and leave behind a black hole in its wake. As the scan moves from the center outward, X-ray sources detected by Chandra are translated into harp sounds. Data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is heard as metallic bell-like sounds, while the light of the central star is mapped to produce the descending scream-like sound at the beginning. The piece is rounded out by strings playing additional data from the infrared telescopic trio of ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Herschel Space Telescope, NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, and NASA’s retired Wide Image Survey Explorer (WISE) as chords.
SS 433
Credit: X-ray: (IXPE): NASA/MSFC/IXPE; (Chandra): NASA/CXC/SAO; (XMM): ESA/XMM-Newton; IR: NASA/JPL/Caltech/WISE; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/VLA/B. Saxton. (IR/Radio image created with data from M. Goss, et al.); Image Processing/compositing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk & K. Arcand; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) In the second movement of this black hole composition, listeners can explore a duet. SS 433 is a binary, or double, system about 18,000 light-years away that sings out in X-rays. The two members of SS 433 include a star like our Sun in orbit around a much heavier partner, either a neutron star or a black hole. This orbital dance causes undulations in X-rays that Chandra, IXPE, and ESA’s XMM-Newton telescopes are tuned into. These X-ray notes have been combined with radio and infrared data to provide a backdrop for this celestial waltz. The nebula in radio waves resembles a drifting manatee, and the scan sweeps across from right to left. Light towards the top of the image is mapped to higher-pitch sound, with radio, infrared, and X-ray light mapped to low, medium, and high pitch ranges. Bright background stars are played as water-drop sounds, and the location of the binary system is heard as a plucked sound, pulsing to match the fluctuations due to the orbital dance.
Centarus A
Credit: X-ray: (Chandra) NASA/CXC/SAO, (IXPE) NASA/MSFC; Optical: ESO; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand, J. Major, and J. Schmidt; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) The third and final movement of the black hole-themed sonifications crescendos with a distant galaxy known as Centaurus A, about 12 million light-years away from Earth. At the center of Centaurus A is an enormous black hole that is sending a booming jet across the entire length of the galaxy. Sweeping around clockwise from the top of the image, the scan encounters Chandra’s X-rays and plays them as single-note wind chimes. X-ray light from IXPE is heard as a continuous range of frequencies, producing a wind-like sound. Visible light data from the European Southern Observatory’s MPG telescope shows the galaxy’s stars that are mapped to string instruments including foreground and background objects as plucked strings.
For more NASA sonifications and information about the project, visit https://chandra.si.edu/sound/
These sonifications were led by the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC), with support from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA’s Universe of Learning program, which is part of the NASA Science Activation program. The collaboration was driven by visualization scientist Kimberly Arcand (CXC), astrophysicist Matt Russo, and musician Andrew Santaguida (both of the SYSTEM Sounds project), along with consultant Christine Malec.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts. NASA’s Universe of Learning materials are based upon work supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AC65A to the Space Telescope Science Institute, working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The agency’s IXPE is a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency with partners and science collaborators in 12 countries. The IXPE mission is led by Marshall. BAE Systems, Inc., headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, manages spacecraft operations together with the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder.
To learn more about NASA’s space telescopes, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/universe
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description
This release features three sonifications related to black holes, presented as soundtracks to short videos. Each sonification video features a composite image representing a different aspect of the life of a black hole. These images are visualizations of data collected by NASA telescopes. During each video, a line sweeps through the image. When the line encounters a visual element, it is translated into sound according to parameters established by visualization scientist Kimberly Arcand, astrophysicist Matt Russo, musician Andrew Santaguida, and consultant Christine Malec.
The first sonification features WR124, an extremely bright, massive star. Here, the star is shown in a short-lived phase preceding the possible creation of a black hole. At the center of the composite image is the large gleaming star in white and pale blue. The star sits at the heart of a mottled pink and gold cloud, its long diffraction spikes extending to the outer edges. Also residing in the cloud are other large gleaming stars, glowing hot-pink dots, and tiny specks of blue and white light. In this sonification, the sound activation line is an ever-expanding circle which starts in the center of the massive star and continues to grow until it exits the frame.
The second sonification features SS 433, a binary star system at the center of a supernova remnant known as the Manatee Nebula. Visually, the translucent, blobby teal nebula does, indeed, resemble a bulbous walrus or manatee, floating in a red haze packed with distant specs of light. Inside the nebula is a violet streak, a blue streak, and a large bright dot. The dot, represented by a plucking sound in the sonification, is the binary system at the heart of the nebula. In this sonification, the vertical activation line begins at our right edge of the frame, and sweeps across the image before exiting at our left.
The third and final sonification features Centaurus A, a distant galaxy with an enormous black hole emitting a long jet of high-energy particles. The black hole sits at the center of the composite image, represented by a brilliant white light. A dark, grainy, oblong cloud cuts diagonally across the black hole from our lower left toward our upper right. A large, faint, translucent blue cloud stretches from our upper left to our lower right. And the long, thin jet, also in translucent blue, extends from the black hole at the center toward the upper lefthand corner. In this sonification, the activation line rotates around the image like the hand of a clock. It begins at the twelve o’clock position, and sweeps clockwise around the image.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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Last Updated May 08, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
Chandra X-Ray Observatory Black Holes Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) Marshall Astrophysics Marshall Science Research & Projects Marshall Space Flight Center Explore More
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