While the Dawn spacecraft discovered several mysterious features on the dwarf planet Ceres, one in particular – the four-mile high feature known as the Lonely Mountain – has scientists at NASA so stumped that they’re turning to the general public for assistance.
The mountain, which was first discovered in April, has sides that are as shiny as the odd bright spots that have captured the world’s attention. Researchers involved with the 7.5 year mission are puzzled as to how the mountain might have originally formed, so they’ve decided to turn to citizen scientists to help, Slashgear and Discovery News reported Wednesday.
During a conference held recently in France, Dawn’s chief investigator Christopher Russell said that his team was “ having difficulty understanding what made that mountain,” and that they had been receiving “many suggestions from the public,” including an email from one individual who noted that the mountain looked similar to ice structures found in the woods of Arkansas.
“These ice structures started just poking out (of the ground). Each one of them had a rock or something like that protecting the surface, keeping it cool,” Russell added. “Maybe our lonely mountain was some sort of ice construct. We’re taking suggestions like this very seriously.”
Lonely Mountain not the only unsolved mystery on Ceres
Dawn travelled over three billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers) to study Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. While ideally the mission was intended to discover more about the dwarf planet, in many ways it has only made it more mysterious.
For instance, during the press conference, Russell said that he and his colleagues had “absolutely no idea” what caused a blue ring to appear on a map of the planet. In addition, he noted that they had not determined the source of a white material found on Ceres, but that it may be salt. As the Dawn spacecraft continues collecting data, they hope to find some answers.
Earlier this week, NASA also released a pair of new maps of Ceres: one which is a color-coded topographic map that shows more than a dozen recently-approved names for the dwarf planet’s various features, and another, false-color map that reveals compositional differences that can be found on the surface.
Dawn’s mission is scheduled to continue through mid-2016. The probe is currently in orbit around Ceres at an altitude of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers), and during this phase of its mission, it will image the entire surface of the dwarf planet up to six times per day. From now through December, it will descend to its final and lowest orbit of 230 miles (375 kilometers), where it will continue collect data and images at a higher resolution than previously possible.
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Feature Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH
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