Nasa has released pictures of a highly unusual mountain on the surface of an asteroid.
The natural wonder is called Ahuna Mons was found on the surfaces of Ceres, which is a dwarf planet believed to be the largest space rock in the solar system.
A probe called Dawn is currently locked in orbit around Ceres but is effectively dead after running out of fuel.
Last year, Nasa said it will continue to speed around the dwarf planet ‘for decades’ but did not reveal whether it would survive as a husk or die in a collision at some point in the future.
Ceres can be found in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The new image is based on mapping data generated by Dawn.
Nasa wrote: ‘Ahuna Mons is like nothing that humanity has ever seen before. For one thing, its slopes are garnished not with old craters but young vertical streaks.
‘The new hypothesis [abouts its origins] holds that a bubble of mud rose from deep within the dwarf planet and pushed through the icy surface at a weak point rich in reflective salt – and then froze.
‘The bright streaks are thought to be similar to other recently surfaced material such as visible in Ceres’ famous bright spots.’
Ceres has a generous supply of organic chemicals referred to as the ‘building blocks of life’.
Data from Nasa’s Dawn probe revealed that the tiny alien world ‘contains a much higher abundance of organics than originally thought’.
Whilst this doesn’t mean aliens ever lived on Ceres, it could show that chemicals that are vital to development of life are spread across the universe.
Hannah Kaplan, a postdoctoral researcher at the Southwest Research Institute who led the research, said the discovery is ‘important not only for Ceres, but also for missions that will soon explore asteroids that may also contain organic material’.
It’s not know how the organics came to be on Ceres, but it’s likely they were carried to its surface by asteroids or comets.
Ceres is famed for the ‘alien mystery lights’ which appear to shine from its surface. These are likely to be caused by light reflecting from ice.
Nasa recently announced the discovery of organic molecules on Mars at the bottom of a lake which ‘held all the ingredients necessary for life, including chemical building blocks and energy sources’ some three billion years ago, according to Nasa.
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