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NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / PSI
Ahuna Mons, a mountain on Ceres.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA
Ahuna Mons, the isolated mountain of the dwarf planet Ceres.
A recently published study by planetary scientists at the University of Arizona confirms that the topography of the dwarf planet Ceres has been shaped by ice volcanoes.
Ceres is a cold, wide, rocky and icy object in the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
The new research has confirmed theories about how volcanism modifies the topography of frozen celestial objects.
Michael Sori, a global scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of UA and contributing author, said the data obtained by Dawn's spacecraft in orbit around Ceres shows what previous computer models had predicted.
"The mantle of the Earth is made up of rocks. The lava bursts. This is liquid rock. If a similar process occurs on Ceres, which is a mixture of rock and ice, you expect the lava to reflect the composition of the interior.
The study is published in the journal "Nature Astronomy".
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