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Samhain Catenae

Samhain Catenae
Samhain Catenae In a previous Dawn Journal, we saw one photo of exotic landscape that included Samhain Catenae. Scientists used many more pictures, including stereo pictures, to construct this perspective of that set of fractures, which average more than 125 miles (200 kilometers) in length. Stresses generated within Ceres' interior created underground fractures as well as the ones we see here. The tectonic activity that created these structures may have been caused by convective upwelling of material. Good theoretical studies show that convection could have taken place in the interior. We speculated that convection could produce visible structures, and studies of Samhain Catenae now provide evidence of internal geology. The analysis indicates the fractured outer layer in this region is about 36 miles (58 kilometers) thick. (The global average may be about 9 miles, or 14 kilometers, thinner than that.) You can find Samhain Catenae between 27°S, 210°E and 22°N, 295°E on this map. Full image and caption. NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA