New 3D animations show the Occator craters from a bird’s eye view

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Göttingen (Germany) – The bright structures inside the Occator crater on the dwarf planet Ceres have baffled planetary scientists for a long time. The strong reflectivity of the “spots” even fueled speculation that they might be artificial “lights”. It is now known that these are highly reflective and relatively young salty deposits from within the planet. The new 3D animations now show the impact crater its bright spots.

The animation is based on data from the last few months of the NASA space probe “Dawn”, which explored the dwarf planet Ceres from 2015 to 2018 from a highly elliptical orbit just 35 kilometers from the surface and based on the latest calculations by scientists led by Dr. Andreas Nathues of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Gottingen and of the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster.

This is the highest resolution three-dimensional reconstruction of the central depression of Occator crater to date, reports the MPS press release and further explains: “With steep slopes, circular grooves and a bright white central peak, the animated flyby over the inner area of the crater shows the whole range of geological peculiarities of this formation “.

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The researchers had already been able to show that the current shape of Occator crater is evidence of an eventful past: “The crater was formed 22 million years ago by a violent impact. With a diameter of 92 kilometers, Occator Crater is larger than most craters on earth. After the impact, a central mountain rose in the center but soon collapsed. About 7.5 million years ago a large amount of brine escapes from the interior of the dwarf planet at this point; the water evaporated, leaving white deposits called carbonates, which can still be clearly seen. As a result of the loss of material, the interior of the crater sank, creating an approximately circular depression with a diameter of about 15 kilometers. As the animation impressively shows, its edges outline rugged mountains and steep slopes, as well as numerous parallel furrows. About 2 million years ago, the material re-emerged in the Occatore crater: the 340-meter-high dome was formed in the center of the depression.

For the new animation, scientists combined newer high-resolution images with older color data. The red color of parts of the central dome stands for material that appears white to the naked eye, but reflects light more intensely as the wavelength increases. It is still unclear whether this extraordinarily fresh material is water attached to salts or perhaps even organic compounds.

But even with the latest animation, the dawn data analysis is far from over. There are still tens of thousands of unrated recordings by “Dawn Framing Cameras” …

FURTHER MESSAGES ON THE TOPIC
Mystery Solved: Ceres’ bright spots come from salty groundwater on August 11, 2020
Finding alien intelligence: is AI also prone to Pareidolia? January 30, 2020
Ahuna Mons: Kegelberg on Ceres was once an ice volcano on June 17, 2019
On the dwarf planet Ceres, there may have been liquid water near the surface for 10 million years on February 20, 2019
The “lights of Ceres” are probably the remains of a young cryovolcano on 7 March 2017
Active ice volcanoes on the dwarf planet Ceres, 20 November 2018
The Dawn probe finds the primordial ocean on the dwarf planet Ceres on October 27, 2017
Large amounts of surface ice and volcano ice on the dwarf planet Ceres, September 3, 2016

Those: MPS

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