And all the people came up after him,
and the people piped with pipes,
and rejoiced with great joy,
1 Kings 1:40
"You would think things would have cooled down after 4.5 billion years. That’s not what planetary scientists are observing.
Ceres Cold Volcanoes
Several news outlets reported that the dwarf planet Ceres, largest body in the asteroid belt, has ice volcanoes. Phys.org says that the famous Ahuna Mons cryovolcano, announced in 2015 from Dawn Spacecraft observations, is probably not alone. If there’s one, there’s probably been more.
and the people piped with pipes,
and rejoiced with great joy,
1 Kings 1:40
"You would think things would have cooled down after 4.5 billion years. That’s not what planetary scientists are observing.
Ceres Cold Volcanoes
Several news outlets reported that the dwarf planet Ceres, largest body in the asteroid belt, has ice volcanoes. Phys.org says that the famous Ahuna Mons cryovolcano, announced in 2015 from Dawn Spacecraft observations, is probably not alone. If there’s one, there’s probably been more.
Adding to the puzzle are the steep sides and well-defined features of Ahuna Mons — usually
signs of geologic youth, [Michael] Sori [U of Arizona] said.
Earlier volcanoes may have flattened out by viscous relaxation over millions of years, the article claims. But then why would there be any activity at all today? Ahuna Mons is at most 200 million years old, Sori claims. “It just hasn’t had time to deform.” He guesses that age by assuming models of water-ice content and other model parameters, and fitting its lifetime into what he assumes for the age of the solar system (A.S.S.) in Darwin Years. It should be noted, though, that 200 million years represents only 1/23rd of the A.S.S. Was activity occurring steadily for the other 22/23rds of the dwarf planet’s existence?
Space. com puts a happy face on the quandary facing old-age planetary scientists:
That leads to two possibilities:
Ahuna Mons is just as it appears, inexplicably alone after forming relatively recently on an otherwise inactive world.
Or, the cryovolcano is not alone or unusual, and there is some process on Ceres that has destroyed its predecessors and left the young Ahuna Mons as the solitary cryovolcano on the dwarf planet, according to Sori.
Space. com puts a happy face on the quandary facing old-age planetary scientists:
“It would be fun to check some of the other features that are potentially older domes on Ceres to see if they fit in with the theory of how the shapes should viscously evolve over time,” Singer said in the same statement. “Because all of the putative cryovolcanic features on other worlds are different, I think this helps to expand our inventory of what is possible.”
Yes; explaining features that your philosophy did not predict can be loads of fun." CEH