Julia Maia

Support Archive Scientist

 

Main Research Fields

I am a planetary geophysicist specialized in the analysis of gravity and topography data obtained by orbiting spacecrafts to decipher the internal structure and geodynamics of terrestrial planets. I have worked on better constraining the crustal thickness of Venus, as well as providing new insights about its mantle viscosity structure and thermal structure of the lithosphere.


Keywords

Planetary Interiors / Geophysics / Geodynamics / Venus / Icy moons / Gravity data

Ongoing collaborations

  • Institute of Space Research, DLR, Berlin, Germany
  • University of Edinburgh, Scotland
  • University of Milan, Italy
  • Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France
  • Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Publications

Full publication list can be found at my ORCID page, or google scholar page.

Key Publications

Maia, J. & Lefèvre, M. Venus reawakening. Nature Communcations 17, 4182 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72086-4

Collinet, M., Maia, J., Plesa, A.-C., Klemme, S., & Wieczorek, M. (2025). Felsic magmatism on Venus generated by crustal recycling and melting. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 130. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JE009187

Patočka, V., Maia, J., & Plesa, A.-C. (2025). Polar motion dynamics on slow-rotating Venus: Signatures of mantle flow. AGU Advances, 6,. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV001976

Maia, J. S., et al. (2025). The seismogenic thickness of Venus. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 130. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JE009065

Maia, J. S., Wieczorek, M. A., & Plesa, A.-C. (2023). The mantle viscosity structure of Venus. Geophysical Research Letters, 50. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL103847

Maia, J. S., & Wieczorek, M. A. (2022). Lithospheric structure of Venusian crustal plateaus. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 127. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JE007004

Project/mission at ESA

  • Lunar missions 
  • Legacy Missions

Other missions involvement

  • EnVision (Radio Sceince Experiment and VenSpec Science teams)
  • JUICE (GALA science team and Interior Working Group)

Community Engagement