It’s kind of hard to scope things out on Venus because the surface probes we send get obliterated pretty quickly by the heat. Pictures of Venus’ surface do exist, though, and this one shows “large circular domes” that look pretty darn hot. The domes are thought to be magma erupting through vents, in a process that happens on Earth too, called volcanism. Get it? Volcanoes? Get it? OK. Moving on.
The Magellan spacecraft circled Venus from 1990 to 1994 and used radar to map its surface.
The picture above is computer generated based on those data. To get a sense of scale, the circular domes on Venus are estimated to be about 25km across, so we’re not talking about some little magma bubble here.
How long until Earth is just as inhospitable? [APOD]