NASA: the largest mountain in the Ceres turned ice volcano – RIA Novosti

12:04 02.09.2016

(updated: 13:04 02.09.2016 )

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MOSCOW, September 2 – RIA Novosti The scientific team of Dawn summed up the interim results of the study Ceres and told the opening kriovulkanov, deposits of “pure” ice, and other traces of geological activity in the bowels of this dwarf planet in a series of six articles. published in the journal Science.

“Ahune is the only” real “mountain on Ceres. When we got accustomed to it and studied it, we realized that it is a dome kriovulkana. This Ahune is a unique object, whose age, judging by the almost complete absence of craters on its surface, is only a few hundred million years “, – said David Williams (David Williams) from the University of Arizona in Tucson (United States)

<. p> Williams and dozens of other scientists led by Christopher Russell (Christopher Russell), head of the Dawn mission, revealed the essence of the mountains and found a lot of other interesting things on the surface of Ceres, the largest dwarf planet, examining the data collected probe during closest approach to this celestial body.

The discovery that Ahune is kriovulkanom, according to scientists, is that her bowels in the recent past or even today remain warm enough to inside them could be liquid water or a strong brine. this planetary scientists began to suspect a long time, at the end of last year, and the new data only confirmed this idea.

As the authors of an article, there are other signs of cryovolcanism and geological activity on Ceres. For example, the bottom surface of some craters were too flat so that they can be formed in such a way and, apparently, “leveled” the eruption of water-salt “magma”, caused by a meteorite impact.

Bright example of this is the crater Okkator and mysterious bright spot on its surface, which are now Russell and his colleagues believe the heels of similar eruptions. Some bright spots in other craters could be abandoned, according to Williams, fumes tsererianskogo “brine” in the cracks, leading to the warm bowels of the dwarf planet.

All this confirms voiced recently theory that Ceres is not only ice, and the mixture of ice and rock, and that its subsoil is partially similar to “layered doll” of diverse species that exists inside the Earth and all major Earth-like planets. Part of this “matryoshka”, as noted by the authors of one of NASA’s research was generated by the interaction of water with rocks and ice of Ceres in the past.

In addition to traces of geological activity and hints for the presence of liquid water in the interior of Ceres, planetary scientists and probe Dawn managed to find her still a lot of interesting materials, including “clean” ice on its surface, which scientists do not expect to see . The fact is that the ice broken by the action of sunlight in space, which means that it reserves for Ceres continuously updated. What is the source of water, scientists still do not know.

The answer may lie in the opening of the next Dawn. Scientists have recently discovered that GRaND instrument on board the probe recorded the unusual outbreak in the interaction of the solar wind with Ceres, which indicate the potential existence in the rarefied atmosphere of the dwarf planet.

The story “relationship” of Dawn and Ceres does not end – NASA scientists unexpectedly extended the work of the probe on the orbit of the dwarf planet until 2018, rather than sending it to another object, and this week the unit moved to a high orbit in order to maximize the time the probe life. While scientists have not yet come to a consensus as to what the study will continue to pursue Dawn.