Satellites could detect quakes on Venus
By Sid Perkins
Strong seismic activity on Venus could cause brief but detectable temperature increases high in that planet’s atmosphere, new analyses suggest.
Although Venus is almost the same size as Earth, its atmosphere is about 53 times as dense at the planet’s surface as Earth’s is at sea level. Therefore, pressure pulses from large ground motions on Venus are probably transmitted more efficiently to high altitudes than such pulses are in Earth’s atmosphere, says Raphaël Garcia of the Paris Geophysical Institute. He and his colleagues developed a model of how sound would be transmitted through the Venusian atmosphere, which is more than 96 percent carbon dioxide.