Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Ring-mold craters are a special kind of impact crater that looks like the ring molds used in baking. So far, they have been identified on Mars and are believed to be caused by impacts into ice covered by a thin layer of regolith. Using the Dawn mission data, a new study reports the identification of ring-mold craters within the huge impact crater, Occator, on the dwarf planet, Ceres. The Cerean ring-mold craters are found to exhibit strong morphological similarities to those on Mars. Their occurrence suggests the presence of localized water ice reservoirs in the subsurface and can also be used for the study of habitable zones on planetary bodies in our solar system.

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Ring-Mold Craters on Ceres: Evidence for Shallow Subsurface Water Ice Sources