What’s It Like On The Loneliest Mountain in the Solar System?
Most mountains on Earth are certainly remote since they’re so hard to reach and generally
a long way away from most of the population. But, still, it’s not like even our most hard-to-scale
peaks are totally cut off from everything else. Not all mountains are created equal,
however, and there’s one place in space that’s truly, truly isolated.
This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a
closer look at what really could be the loneliest mountain in the solar system.
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As iconic as they can seem, mountains aren’t a unique feature to Earth. Although they do usually
form on other planets in much the same way as they do here; when that planet’s tectonic plates crash
and grind into each other, causing the rocky crust to rise up out of the ground. That said,
mountains aren’t only formed through tectonic activity… and it is possible to see them take
shape on planets without any plate movement at all. Certain types can form as a result of
asteroid impact, for example, which is how our own moon has various mountains on its surface.
The tallest and probably most famous non-Earth mountain in the solar system is Olympus Mons. This
Martian colossus climbs higher into the sky than any other known mountain on anything circling the
sun, towering some fourteen miles above Mars’ dusty surface. Olympus Mons is hardly lonely,
though. It’s well known to anyone with even a passing interest in astronomy,
as something of a poster child and backdrop for humankind’s future Mars missions. And,
in fact, while it’s seclusion that we’re searching for in particular, we move away
from the planets entirely… and into the murky, rocky realm of the asteroid belt.
The asteroid belt is a ring of debris found between Mars and Jupter. Mostly it’s composed
of small asteroids and rocks no bigger than the size of a common boulder on Earth, plus an endless
flow of cosmic dust. But some objects are much larger... and one of the largest of all is Ceres,
the dwarf planet. Though not quite big enough to be considered a true planet (as per guidelines
laid out by the International Astronomical Union) Ceres is massive compared to everything else
around it. Though there are literally millions of other asteroids and objects in this region,
Ceres accounts for around one-third of the total mass in the asteroid belt. From the beginning,
then, this is a world that is perhaps somewhat unusual and singled out. It doesn’t fit in
with the solar system’s major planets… but it’s also the only dwarf planet in the belt,
and indeed the only one before we reach Pluto. And therefore,
it’s on Ceres that we find the loneliest and most isolated mountain of all - Ahuna Mons.
In 2015, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft did something that had never been done before when it orbited
around a dwarf planet, with that dwarf planet being Ceres. The breakthrough probe took some
stunning pictures from above and beamed them back to Earth, leading scientists on the ground
to notice something strange in some of them. A massive rise, a solitary mountain, soaring some
16,000 feet (or 3 miles) above the gray surface. It looked bizarre. It was completely alone on this
otherworldly landscape but very well defined, with almost pristine edges, smooth contours,
and none of the expected debris marking its base. All of these qualities are unusual. Typically,
mountains form in ranges with clear signs of the tectonic activity which led to them… but,
here, there was no surrounding group of mountains. Just this one immense
formation. NASA even described it as “like nothing that humanity has ever seen before”.
To put into perspective just how strange this actually was,
one Professor Michael Sori has before likened it to a scenario where only one
volcano existed on the entirety of Earth and how odd that would appear. For a time, then,
astronomers wondered how such an isolated mountain could form - the proof was before their eyes,
but the reason eluded them - but their questions were answered shortly after.
Using gravity sensors to peer beneath the surface of Ceres, researchers were able
to see that something else was immediately below the mountain. They worked out that this mountain
had actually formed via an enormous eruption of rocky mud that had swiftly solidified due
to the freezing conditions on Ceres. As it turns out, then, Ahuna Mons is quite simply
a cryovolcano… it’s just that it’s one of the smoothest examples of one that we’ve ever seen.
Were you to stand at the peak of Ahuna Mons, the landscape of Ceres would stretch out before you,
unbroken but also barren and probably quite monotonous. Gray, lifeless ground would dominate
every direction, marked only with craters formed via various asteroids striking Ceres throughout
its long history. In some ways, we might expect it to be a bit like standing on the moon,
which is something humankind has at least experienced before. But, actually, there
would be some differences. On Ceres, for example, there’d be no other major mountains (or particular
rises of any kind) in sight. There would be even fewer points of reference than there are
on the moon… and, of course, there’d be no Earth (or any other planet) dominating the sky above.
Since there’s almost zero atmosphere on Ceres (and no weather) the stillness would be total.
The surface temperature varies between around minus-200 and minus-100 degrees Fahrenheit. Here,
we’re so far from the sun that it would be only about a third as big in the sky,
as it is on Earth. It’s not just what you’d see that would be different, though. It’s how you’d
feel. The force of gravity would be substantially less than what humans are used to. Ceres is only
massive enough to host about three percent of the gravity on Earth… so simply jumping
on its surface could easily send you far higher than a two-storey house into the air,
leaving you to just float around there for ten, fifteen, twenty seconds, or more. Walking would
be a major hassle, as your feet would barely ever be touching the ground. Every movement
would be dramatically amplified. Consider that even the moon has much stronger gravity than
Ceres (at around sixteen percent that of Earth’s) and the challenge atop Ahuna Mons is clear.
Nevertheless, were you to venture down from the peak of this particular mountain, where
could you go next? Ceres is a relatively small place in the solar system; walking its diameter
would be about the same as walking the length of the United Kingdom, here. A long journey,
yes, but just in terms of the time required, it should be manageable - were it not for the
fact that every step could very easily send you spinning off of the surface and into
space forever. Say you were wearing a suitable spacesuit to negate all of the other challenges,
though… what else would you see? Pretty much nothing else. Again, crater marks would be the
only things to interrupt the unending gray. And, as much as science fiction likes to paint the
asteroid belt as though it’s perilously full of fast-moving space rock… in reality it’s a very,
very quiet place. While asteroids have congregated in this region specifically,
it can be hundreds, thousands, even millions of miles from one asteroid to the next.
All in all, then, it’s perhaps hard to think of a more isolated
spot in the entire solar system than Ceres. Deep within the asteroid belt,
although there are whole worlds orbiting the sun both closer and further away than
it is… it’s wholly cut off from all of them, drifting in the void, with just an
occasionally passing rock for company. Ahuna Mons dominates the landscape because, really,
there’s nothing else there. It’s just one single, stranded cryovolcano and then total emptiness.
Thanks to a process known as viscous relaxation - a theory that any solid
can (and will) flow if given enough time - it’s expected that (even without an atmosphere
to trigger traditional erosion) Ahuna Mons will gradually whittle itself away, slowly flattening
over millions of years. But, that’s all far into the future. For now, it leads an extremely unusual
existence. Thanks to modern technology, we can at least track that existence from here on out. And,
should humans ever devise a way to travel through the solar system,
then perhaps we’ll one day get to visit and view it more frequently. If that were ever to happen,
then it would certainly give a whole new meaning to “getting away from it
all”. Because that’s what it’s like on the loneliest mountain in the solar system.
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