Strange lines on Venus's surface may be stacks of lava

摘要

THE surface of Venus, which is often considered dead and inactive, is covered in weird lines that suggest some kind of active erosion. These lines, called tesserae, cover about 7 per cent of the planet. They were spotted by Russian Venera orbiters in the early 1980s and are characterised by long, parallel lines on hills and mountains that look like the ground has folded over itself. Paul Byrne at North Carolina State University and his colleagues examined the few radar images we have of Venus's surface to try to figure out what these tesserae are. They noticed that the lines tend to curve along features on the ground, similar to a topographical map, rather than simply cutting across.