LONDON: Something interesting is brewing on the dwarf planet Ceres. The largest asteroid in the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter, Ceres has been throwing surprises at scientists. Earlier, Ceres had mystified astronomers with its bright spots. Now, it’s pyramids!
New images of Ceres taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft have revealed a “pyramid-shaped” mountain that protrudes out for three miles over the surface, according to a post by NASA. The pyramid-like structure seems to be anomaly in an otherwise flat surfaced dwarf planet.
“The surface of Ceres has revealed many interesting and unique features. For example, icy moons in the outer solar system have craters with central pits, but on Ceres central pits in large craters are much more common. These and other features will allow us to understand the inner structure of Ceres that we cannot sense directly,” NASA quoted Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator for the Dawn mission, based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, as saying.
NASA also claims that at least eight bright spots can be seen next to the largest bright area, which scientists think it is approximately 9 kilometers wide.
NASA says that a highly reflective material, like ice or salt on the surface of the dwarf planet, could be responsible for these spots.
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