Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses and gaze across Ceres at mysterious mountain Ahuna Mons. Shown in a 3D anaglyph perspective view, the mosaicked image data was captured in December of 2015, taken from the Dawn spacecraft's low-altitude mapping orbit about 385 kilometers above the surface of the dwarf planet. A remarkable dome-shaped feature on Ceres, with steep, smooth sides Ahuna Mons is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter at its base, rising on average 4 kilometers to a flattened summit. Similar in size to mountains found on planet Earth, no other Cerean surface feature is so tall and well-defined. It is not known what process shaped the lonely Ahuna Mons, or if the bright material streaking its steepest side is the same material responsible for Ceres' famous bright spots.
Hi!
My "reply" is a Question! As follows:
May there be a relation of Ahuna Mons with that hole that is seen just alongside of it (to top-left)?
Could that hole be an impact crater?
Dawn reached it's lowest orbit in mid-December and since then there have been hardly any images released at the website. Just a few redundant flyover videos. And even this is just a new look at an object featured almost a year ago. Disappointing to say the least. It appears we know more about Pluto from a 24 hour flyby than Ceres after a year in orbit.
An earlier article about Ahuna Mons said the protrusion did not appear to be associated with any impact crater, and yet what is that right beside it? Isn't there a feature on Earth's Moon similar to this which is in fact is caused by a nearby impact? If Ahuna is not associated with the impact crater then I think we deserve an explanation why it is not.
A big thumbs down for the Ceres team for keeping all the good stuff to themselves.
stowaway wrote:Dawn reached it's lowest orbit in mid-December and since then there have been hardly any images released at the website.
They've been releasing a new image pretty much every day, just as before, on their website: http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/ceres.html
Just scroll down below the "Featured Image", which hasn't been changing for whatever reason, and they're all there.
The photo of Ahuna Mons seems like some hard (probably Nickle Iron) astroid hit Ceres with a relatively low speed impact and imbedded itself underneath the near side of the crater. Speed and angle of impact may result in explosive events but not necessarily. Examining the gravity within that mound will decide if that is true.
Celestekent wrote:
The photo of Ahuna Mons seems like some hard (probably Nickle Iron) astroid hit Ceres with a relatively low speed impact and imbedded itself underneath the near side of the crater. Speed and angle of impact may result in explosive events but not necessarily. Examining the gravity within that mound will decide if that is true.
Seems to me that the crater next to Ahuna Mons is a collapsed caldera, not an impact crater, as many craters on Ceres seem to be. Perhaps Ahuna Mons is destined for the same fate.
stowaway wrote:Dawn reached it's lowest orbit in mid-December and since then there have been hardly any images released at the website.
They've been releasing a new image pretty much every day, just as before, on their website:
Thanks for the link and my apologies to the Ceres team. That's a pretty well kept secret. Even knowing now that it's there I haven't been able to find it at the website which I visit everyday for more than a year now. Thanks again.
Check it out, hi res pic of Occator's bright spots, processed with respect to the dynamic range of those spots. I confess I am a little disappointed that the ivory tower from The Neverending Story is clearly not present. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20350
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.
geckzilla wrote:
Check it out, hi res pic of Occator's bright spots, processed with respect to the dynamic range of those spots. I confess I am a little disappointed that the ivory tower from The Neverending Story is clearly not present. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20350
3D Ahuna Mons
