1. Good morning Mrs. Painter and class mates.
Volcanoes in our solar system have been known
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the old fashion
baking soda volcano.
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Well, what if I were to tell you that there are
volcanoes, much bigger, way more explosive,
incredibly mind-blowing and much more
destructive than any volcano you’ll find on earth.
Well, the rumors are true. These amazing volcanoes
can only be found in outer space.
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3. frozen gases, like water and nitrogen. These
frozen gases erupt in the form of plumes (a column
of water moving through another), liquid, ice and
vapor. They do this because the temperatures
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beyond Mars are very low, for these planets are not
very close to the sun.
Volcanoes in space erupt similarly to the way
volcanoes on earth erupt.
Firstly, because of the heat in the core of a planet
near the sun, pressure builds underground.
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5. underground. From there the liquid water rises
up to the surface. After that plumes of water (a
column of water moving through another) and ice
particles shoot up from underground onto the
surrounding area. Rarely water vapor can also shoot
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up from out of the volcano. Lastly, the cryomagma
condenses into a solid form and becomes ice
because of the very low surrounding temperature.
Most violent volcanic eruptions occur when a cap
forms over the vent of a volcano and the magma
7. The first cryovolcanoes to be observed was on
Triton, one of Neptune’s many moons.
Mars is the home of the largest volcano in the solar
system, Olympus Mons. It is approximately 25.7
kilometers high and is just under 3 times the size of
Mount Everest; as well as the base of Olympus
Mons has almost the same area of Arizona. It is also
100 times bigger than Earth’s largest volcano Mauna
Loa, in Hawaii. Olympus Mons was formed
2.
to have formed millions of years ago when the solar
system was younger and the planets and moons had
higher internal temperatures. Planets near the sun
are rocky, and produce rock magma, similar to the
lava seen on earth. However volcanoes found on
planets beyond Mars and their moons are called
cryovolcanoes (cryo meaning producing ice)
because they erupt cryomagma. This means that
instead of erupting magma, they erupt cold or
4. Pressure is what keeps the magma hot. Soon the
magma will begin to rise because the pressure
forces it up. Next the magma will erupt out of the
volcano and onto the surface surrounding it. Lastly,
the magma settles onto the area and cools. Once it
is cool, the magma will harden, creating new rock
on the planet.
With cryovolcanoes, it’s a different process.
It starts when a pocket of water below the planet is
pressurized because of the tidal heating
6. can’t escape. This builds high pressure until the
volcano bursts.
The first time an active volcano was found in space
was in 1979. NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft took close
up pictures of Jupiter’s moon lo, which had an
active volcano on it, erupting magma. They soon
realized that not only did lo have volcanoes, they
were active! This was the first time an erupting
volcano had been found anywhere besides earth.
8. due to the cooling lava emerging from
underground. Although, unlike Earth, Mars doesn’t
have a lot of tectonic motion, so these hot spots
never shifted to a different location. This mean that
the lava just continued to build up in the same
place until it became the beast of a mountain that it
is today.
Solidified lava covers approximately 85% of the
surface on Venus. On Venus volcanic eruptions
9. have covered almost the entire planet in new 10. through an eruption of highly violent lava that
rock about 500 million years ago. This new rock spreads out evenly due to the high pressure on
filled most of the craters on Venus, which means Venus. Pancake domes are often seen in clusters,

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there are very few visible today. This proves that but disappointingly, a group of pancake domes are
the fewer craters on a planet, the younger the rock not called a “stack”.
on the surface is. Venus is known to have more I hope you have enjoyed my presentation on
than 1600 major volcanoes. volcanoes in outer space.
One unusual structured volcano is referred to as a Thank you
pancake dome, which stands at just less than 1

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kilometer high. They are thought to be formed

References

Kerrod, Robin and Sparrow, Giles, the way the universe works. London,
Dorling Kindersley (DK) 2002

http://listverse.com/2015/03/09/10-utterly-amazing-volcanoes-in-space/

http://geology.com/articles/active-volcanoes-solar-system.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryovolcano

A DIAGRAM ON HOW
CRYVOLCANOES FORM

VENUS
AS YOU CAN SEE VENUS HAS
HAD MANY EXPLOSIVE
VOLCANOES THAT HAVE LEFT
MARKS ON ITS SURFACE
 MAGMA
VOLCANOES
CRYOVOLCANOES
CRYOVOLCANO
FORMATION
 JUPITOR’S MOON ‘LO’
AS YOU CAN SEE ‘LO’ HAS HAD
MANY EXPLOSIVE VOLCANOES.
THESE VOLCANOES HAVE LEFT
MARKS ON THE SURFACE OF
‘LO’
PANCAKE DOMES ON VENUS

OLYMPOS MONS IN
COMPARISON TO MAUNA KEA
AND MONUT EVEREST

OLYMPOS MONS
(ARIAL VIEW)

OLYMPOS MONS
(SIDE VIEW)

A CRYOVOLCANO ON
SATURN’S MOON ‘TITON’

ERUPTING VOLCANOES ON
JUPITOR