Scientists have discovered dozens of ice volcanoes on Ceres

It sounds like something that George R. R. Martin might prepare in the next Game of Thrones book: Ice Volcanoes.

A new study suggests that the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest celestial body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is home to dozens of volcanoes spewing ice and gases called "cryomagma".

Creepy.

In 2015, NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Ceres and began taking pictures. The probe gave scientists the most comprehensive look at Ceres, revealing its cratered surface and its volcano extending for 2.5 miles into the sky, nicknamed "Ahuna Mons". Research conducted in 2016 suggested that Ahuna Mons was a geological phenomenon known as "cryovolcano".

Literally, an ice volcano.

The latest research, published online Monday in Nature Astronomy, suggests that Ahuna Mons is not only extremely cool (sorry) anomaly. In fact, Ceres can have dozens of cryovolcans scattered on its surface. Using computer modeling and images taken from NASA's Dawn spacecraft, a team of US researchers was able to identify 22 domes that could be active cryovolcans during the history of Ceres. Their average diameters ranged from about 10 to 54 miles, which made them smaller than Ahuna Mons.

Cryovolcanoes are not limited to Ceres. The analysis of the moons of Pluto and Saturn, Enceladus and Titan, also revealed features that suggest that they could also harbor ice volcanoes. However, no other spacecraft has orbited a celestial body with unique geological formations – Ceres thus provides an excellent opportunity to study them.

Despite the abundance of information Dawn has gained, Ceres remains somewhat mysterious – the features that scientists continue to notice do not always seem to fit their assumptions about dwarf planets. As Dawn continues to revolve around Ceres, it is surely not the last time we will hear about ice volcanoes in the solar system.

Maybe they'll even finish in the next Game of Thrones, hey George? (From here, we will probably have visited Ceres in person, anyway.)

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