     APOD: 2017 October 9 - Unusual Mountain Ahuna Mons on Asteroid Ceres

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                2017 October 9
                                      [2]
                Unusual Mountain Ahuna Mons on Asteroid Ceres
    Image Credit: Dawn Mission [3] , NASA [4] , JPL-Caltech [5] , UCLA [6] ,
                                  MPS/DLR/IDA

Explanation: What created this unusual mountain? Ahuna Mons [7] is the largest
mountain on the largest known asteroid in our Solar System [8] , Ceres [9] ,
which orbits our Sun in the main asteroid belt [10]  between Mars [11]  and
Jupiter [12] . Ahuna Mons [13] , though, is like nothing [14]  that humanity
has ever seen before. For one thing, its slopes are garnished not with old
craters [15] but young vertical streaks. One hypothesis [16]  holds that Ahuna
[17] Mons is an ice volcano that formed shortly after a large impact on the
opposite side of the dwarf planet [18] loosened up the terrain through focused
seismic waves [19] . The bright streaks may be high in reflective salt [20] ,
and therefore similar to other recently surfaced material such as visible in
Ceres' famous bright spots [21] . The featured double-height digital image
[22]  was constructed from surface maps taken of Ceres last year by the
robotic Dawn mission [23] .

Open Science: Browse 1,500+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library [24]

                  Tomorrow's picture: zodiac pinnacles [25]

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [37] (MTU [38] ) & Jerry Bonnell [39]
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1710/AhunaMonsCeres_Dawn_1280.jpg
  [3] https://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/
  [4] http://www.nasa.gov/
  [5] http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
  [6] http://dawn.igpp.ucla.edu/
  [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahuna_Mons
  [8] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/solarsystem/needtoknow
  [9] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/ceres
  [10] ap060319.html
  [11] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/mars
  [12] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/jupiter/indepth
  [13] ap160319.html
  [14] http://data.whicdn.com/images/21613526/original.jpg
  [15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_counting
  [16] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA20915
  [17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumi_Naga#Ahuna
  [18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet
  [19] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOGoKCK17a4
  [20] ap151211.html
  [21] ap150514.html
  [22] https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20915
  [23] https://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/
  [24] http://ascl.net/code/all
  [25] ap171010.html
  [26] ap171008.html
  [27] archivepix.html
  [28] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [29] lib/aptree.html
  [30] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [31] calendar/allyears.html
  [32] /apod.rss
  [33] lib/edlinks.html
  [34] lib/about_apod.html
  [35] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=171009
  [36] ap171010.html
  [37] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [38] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [39] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [40] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [41] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [42] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [43] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [44] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [45] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [46] http://www.mtu.edu/
