NASA discovers young cryovolcano on dwarf planet Ceres

​Washington: The dwarf planet Ceres hosts an unexpectedly young cryovolcano, analysis of images from NASA's Dawn mission has revealed.

Instead of molten rock, salty-mud volcanoes, or "cryovolcanoes", release frigid, salty water sometimes mixed with mud. The cryovolcanic formation on Ceres is named Ahuna Mons.

"Ahuna Mons is evidence of an unusual type of volcanism, involving salty water and mud, at work on Ceres," said study lead author Ottaviano Ruesch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, and the Universities Space Research Association in Washington, DC. "Geologic activity was discussed and debated among scientists: now we finally have observations testifying to its occurrence," Ruesch noted.

Although the volcano is not active now, the team was surprised that it appears geologically recent. Young volcanism on an isolated dwarf planet is a surprise, as usually only planets, or satellites orbiting around them, have volcanism.

Also, volcanic eruptions require bodies to be rocky, like Earth or Mars, or icy, like Saturn's moon Enceladus. Ceres is made of salts, muddy rocks and water ice: exotic and unexpected ingredients for volcanism.

Ahuna Mons on Ceres indicates such physical and chemical limitations to volcanism are only apparent. As a consequence, volcanism might be more widespread than previously thought.

"The Ahuna Mons cryovolcano allows us to see inside Ceres," Ruesch said. "The same process might happen on other dwarf planets like Pluto," Ruesch noted.

The team used images and 3-D terrain maps from the Dawn mission to analyse the shape of Ahuna Mons. They compared features and models of known mountain-building processes on Earth and Mars to the features found on Ahuna Mons.