A peculiar looking mountain puzzles experts.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Barely a month after NASA’s Dawn spacecraft acquired the most detailed images of the mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres ever recorded, the newest images from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft show a pyramid-shaped mountain that towers three miles high over the planetoid’s surface.
The mountain is peculiar, as there are a few other features like it in the surrounding region – or even the rest of the dwarf planet, according to the Daily Mail.
Another new image beamed over from the Dawn probe reveal the bright spots, collectively known as “Spot 5,” in greater detail.
“It is exciting seeing these features come into sharper focus,” Dr. Marc Rayman, Dawn’s mission director and chief engineer, told the Daily Mail.
Dawn captured the photo on June 9 from a distance of 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers), reported NBC News.
“At least eight spots can be seen next to the largest bright area, which scientists think is approximately 6 miles (9 kilometers) wide,” NASA officials wrote in a statement on Monday. “A highly reflective material is responsible for these spots — ice and salt are leading possibilities, but scientists are considering other options, too.”
The New Scientist cited speculation that they could be the sites of watery volcanoes, also known as cryovolcanoes.
Dawn is the first mission to visit a dwarf planet, and the first to orbit two distinct solar system targets. It studied giant asteroid Vesta for 14 months in 2011 and 2012, and arrived at Ceres on March 6, 2015. Researchers hope close observation of Ceres’ surface will reveal clues about the formation of protoplanets in the early Solar System some 4.5 billion years ago.