New work by Jennifer Scully and colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory sheds light on the interior structure of the asteroid Ceres. They analyzed chains of pits, interpreted as the surface expression of a larger fracture underground. Fractures form in an extensional environment and the spacing between pit chains is indicative of a crust greater than 58 km thick within the Samhain Catenae region. This thickness is greater than the regional crustal thickness and leads them to hypothesize that Samhain Catenae formed by an upwelling (flowing) of material from the deep interior of the asteroid. READ MORE »