A NASA spacecraft has spied what appears to be an inactive volcano on the surface of Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The volcano is about half as tall as Mount Everest, scientists reported on Thursday.
“It’s totally cool and unexpected,” said chief scientist Christopher Russell of the University of California, Los Angeles.
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA via AP
Evidence of volcanic activity has been spotted on many planets and their moons, but whether there ever was similar activity on Ceres remained unclear until the arrival of the Dawn spacecraft.
The dome-shaped mountain appears to be made of salt and mud, unlike volcanoes in the outer solar system, which are icy, said Ottaviano Ruesch of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center who led the team that analyzed the images.
Dawn observed the dome for several months and did not detect any eruptions, Ruesch said.
The volcano discovery was published in the journal Science along with five other studies that examined impact craters, minerals and ice on Ceres’ surface.
Dawn, which slipped into orbit around Ceres last year, is the first mission to a dwarf planet.
Dwarf planets are similar in shape to planets, but they share the same celestial neighborhood with other, similar-sized bodies. Ceres was once considered a planet before it was downgraded to an asteroid. Since 2006, Ceres has been classified as a dwarf planet like Pluto.
Ceres is the second and last stop for Dawn, which paid an earlier visit to the asteroid Vesta. Both bodies are in the asteroid belt that is littered with rocky debris.
Dawn wrapped up its prime mission in June, flying as close as 386km above Ceres’ surface. NASA approved a mission extension, but engineers need to move the spacecraft higher to save fuel.
Dawn yesterday began spiraling away to about 1,460km above Ceres to begin a fresh round of observations.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese