Wednesday, 8 March 2017

There might be a salt-spewing cryovolcano at the center of Ceres' brightest spot

This view of the whole Occator crater shows the brightly colored pit in its center and ...

One of the weirdest features of the asteroid belt's biggest dwarf planet Ceres is a series of bright spots in the center of the large Occator crater. NASA's Dawn spacecraft has revealed that the bright center of the crater is actually home to a dome shape highlighted by reflective salts. New research suggests the bright material, dubbed Cerealia Facula, is actually much younger than the rest of the crater and that the central dome could be the result of cryovolcanic activity.

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from New Atlas http://ift.tt/2m4EwSk

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