Strange volcanic domes on Venus may be made from hot crystal mush

By Leah Crane

NASA/JPL

Venus’s ordinary plateaus could sparkle. Our neighbouring world is sprinkled with domes several hundred metres excessive that seem diversified from the relaxation of its floor, and they’ll be product of gleaming “crystal mush” that will get squeezed up from underground.

Most of Venus’ floor is flat, fashioned by lava that has flooded the land over the planet’s history. But amid all these somewhat unremarkable lava flows sit down domes with all of sudden steep sides which have puzzled researchers for many years, because of they seem no longer going to have been produced by the a connected …