NASA discovered mysterious ice volcanoes on dwarf planet Ceres

For the first time, scientists at NASA found evidence of a mysterious form of ice volcano on the dwarf planet Ceres.

Ceres (Latin: Cerēs) , is the smallest dwarf planet known in the Solar System (only 965.5 km wide) and is the only dwarf planet in the main asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. This dwarf planet was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi on January 1, 1801 and named after the Greek goddess Ceres - the goddess of plants, crops and maternal love. For half a century it was said to be the eighth planet. However, after five decades, Ceres was dropped to just one asteroid.

In 2006, Ceres was reclassified again and this time it was considered a dwarf planet. That means that Ceres is neither a planet nor an asteroid. Currently, Ceres must share the prominent position with Pluto and other dwarf lovers in the belt.

Despite its small size, the dwarf planet Ceres has always caused scientists to suffer from white spots and mysterious craters. In it, the ice volcano Ahuna Mons sprayed with boiling salt water is still a mystery that inspires scientists' discovery.

Dwarf planet Ceres.

Recently, combined with six other studies, NASA scientists have stated that Ahuna Mons is the clearest evidence of the existence of mysterious ice volcanoes. They used data from the Dawn spacecraft to return to further study of the asteroid belt.

Ahuna Mons is a giant pyramid-shaped volcano. Ahuna Mons is 3.96 km high and the mountain foot is 17.7 km wide. It is half the size of Mount Everest. At such a size, scientists do not understand how Ahuna Mons could form on a dwarf planet like Ceres.

According to data collected, NASA scientists said Mount Ahuna Mons is about a few hundred million years old. This age sounds ancient compared to young volcanoes on Earth but it is very young compared to the moon and Mars volcanoes.

Not only impressing the scientific community about the age, size, and existence of the Ahuna Mons volcano, but also people are amazed at the material that made it. It is known that the main ice is the main material that forms this volcano .

For a long time, scientists had doubts about this unusual constituent, so-called low-temperature volcano (Cryovolcanoes) . They exist on Pluto and Ceres, even on Saturn's Titan Moon, but Mount Ahuna Mons is the first testimony of low-temperature volcanoes.

Photos from the Dawn spacecraft.

Cryovolcanoes do not spray molten rock but spray a mixture of water and salt. Because Ahuna Mons sprayed out frozen salt water, forming an icy dome above the top of the mountain. This is one of the signs for NASA scientists to believe that Ahuna Mons is an ice volcano.

To be sure of this, they used the geological map of the area created from the image taken by the spacecraft Dawn when it turned around Ceres. After that, they will conduct observation of the pits and use 3D models to reproduce processes that can form a separate standing mountain. Because the mountain formed without a tectonic plate and was not eroded, it seemed like a volcano.

3D model of Mount Ahuna Mons.

After studying the 3D model of Ahuna Mons, scientists compared the structure of Mount Ahuna Mons with other volcanoes and found that Mount Ahuna Mons has arches, sides of mountains and volcanic peaks on Earth , Mars and the moon.

"We have seen signs of low-temperature volcanic activity in the past but not sure, so this is an important finding , " said Ottaviano Ruesch, a NASA scientist.

Currently scientists will continue to capture the image of Mount Ahuna Mons to see if there is any change and to make sure that the volcano is not working.