NASA has revealed new images of a dwarf planet that it says is “unlike anything humanity has seen before”. Digital renders of Ceres, an enormous asteroid about 250million miles from Earth, showcase a highly unusual mountain with “streaky” features. The rare feature is known as Ahuna Mons, and was created by a giant mud bubble, […]
NASA has revealed new images of a dwarf planet that it says is “unlike anything humanity has seen before”.
Digital renders of Ceres, an enormous asteroid about 250million miles from Earth, showcase a highly unusual mountain with “streaky” features.
The rare feature is known as Ahuna Mons, and was created by a giant mud bubble, according to Nasa.
“Ahuna Mons is like nothing that humanity has ever seen before,” Nasa wrote in a press release. “For one thing, its slopes are garnished not with old craters but young vertical streaks.
“The new hypothesis [about its origins] holds that a bubble of mud rose from deep within the dwarf planet and pushed through the icy surface at a weak point rich in reflective salt – and then froze.
“The bright streaks are thought to be similar to other recently surfaced material such as visible in Ceres’ famous bright spots.”
Ceres sits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
It’s so big, that it’s technically a dwarf planet. Scientists think it formed around 4billion years ago, around the same time as Earth.
Ahuna Mons sticks out the side of Ceres, stretching 10 miles at its base and jutting 2.5 miles high.
It’s unlike anything else on Ceres, and bar a single adjacent crater is surrounded by no other remarkable features.
Nasa produced the visualisations based on data from its Dawn probe, which is currently locked in orbit around Ceres.
The probe is effectively dead after running out of fuel, but experts are still picking through the reams of information it captured between 2015 and 2018.
Dawn discovered the building blocks for alien life on Ceres back in 2017.
Carbon-based materials, similar to what may have helped create life on Earth, were discovered at its surface.
Data showed that the distant world “contains a much higher abundance of organics than originally thought”.
Hannah Kaplan, an expert at the Southwest Research Institute, said the discovery was “important not only for Ceres, but also for missions that will soon explore asteroids that may also contain organic material”.
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