Venus and Earth share many similarities NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech

Venus may be hiding a sea of magma under its surface that could help us learn about Earth’s deep past.

Venus and Earth are a similar size, made of similar materials and are next-door neighbours in the solar system. When these planets first formed, they were probably both molten, with what might have been magma oceans on their surface.

Over billions of years, their crusts solidified, leaving a layer of magma underneath a stony shell. Earth’s magma ocean hardened into rock about 2 billion years ago, but Venus’s may remain. …