Ahuna Mons

Ahuna Mons

The mountain imaged by the Dawn spacecraft. North is down.
Location Ceres
Coordinates 10°28′S 315°48′E / 10.46°S 315.8°E / -10.46; 315.8Coordinates: 10°28′S 315°48′E / 10.46°S 315.8°E / -10.46; 315.8
Peak about 4 km (2 mi or 13,000 ft) high[1]
Discoverer Dawn spacecraft team
2015
Eponym Ahuna, harvest festival of the Sumi Naga from India.

Ahuna Mons[2] is the largest mountain on the dwarf planet and asteroid Ceres. Its nature is unknown: it protrudes above otherwise smooth terrain, it is not an impact feature, and it appears to be the only mountain of its kind on Ceres. Bright streaks run top to bottom on its slopes; these streaks are thought to be salt, similar to the better known Cererian bright spots,[3] and likely resulted from cryovolcanic activity from Ceres's interior.[4] It is named after the traditional post-harvest festival Ahuna of the Sumi Naga people of India.

The mountain was discovered on images taken by the Dawn spacecraft in orbit around Ceres in 2015.[5] It is estimated to have an average height of about 4 km (2 mi) and a maximum height of about 5 km (3 mi), or 16,000 feet, on its steepest side; it is about 20 km (12 mi) wide at the base.[1]

Gallery

Ahuna Mons - Topographical views (March 2016)
Overhead view
Side view
Ahuna Mons - LAMO views (December 2015)
Overhead view
Side view
3D view

Animations

Ceres flyover animations
Surface features exaggerated
(simulated; 01:15; 8 June 2015)[6]
Focus on Occator Crater
(false colors; 01:12; 9 December 2015)
Flight over dwarf planet Ceres
(color; 03:43; 29 January 2016)

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Photos of Ceres by Dawn.

References

  1. 1 2 "PIA20348: Ahuna Mons Seen from LAMO". Jet Propulsion Lab. 7 March 2016. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
  2. ↑ Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature – Ahuna Mons
  3. ↑ Stone, Maddie (October 1, 2015). "Ceres' Mysterious Bright Spots Aren't Made of Ice After All". Gizmodo. Retrieved 2016-03-25.
  4. ↑ Burnham, Robert (December 15, 2015). "Deep freeze puts the squeeze on dwarf planet Ceres". Arizona State University. Retrieved 2016-03-25.
  5. ↑ "NASA spies 3-mile-tall 'pyramid,' more bright spots on Ceres". Cnet. 17 June 2015. Retrieved 19 June 2015.
  6. ↑ Landau, Elizabeth; Dyches, Preston (8 June 2015). "Fly Over Ceres in New Video". NASA. Retrieved 9 June 2015.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, April 14, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.