Samhain Catenae is a

crater chain A crater chain is a line of Impact crater, craters along the surface of an astronomical body. The descriptor term for crater chains is catena , plural catenae (Latin for "chain"), as specified by the International Astronomical Union's rules on ...

on the surface of the

dwarf planet A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be hydrostatic equilibrium, gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve clearing the neighbourhood, orbital dominance like the ...

and large

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

Ceres. It is made up of a series of 6 linear pit chains totaling a distance of 1211 km. It is the largest known catenae on the dwarf planet. It is located to the West of Liberalia Mons and to the East of Homowo Regio. It consists of the area between the Occator and Urvara/Yalode craters.

Etymology

Samhain Catenae is named after the

Gaelic Gaelic (pronounced for Irish Gaelic and for Scots Gaelic) is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". It may refer to: Languages * Gaelic languages or Goidelic languages, a linguistic group that is one of the two branches of the Insul ...

festival

Samhain Samhain ( , , , ) or () is a Gaels, Gaelic festival on 1 November marking the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the "Celtic calendar#Medieval Irish and Welsh calendars, darker half" of the year.Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, Ó hÓ ...

which was celebrated in present day

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

and

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

for 7 days during October and November to celebrate the end of the harvesting season between the Autumn Equinox and

Winter Solstice The winter solstice, or hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's geographical pole, poles reaches its maximum axial tilt, tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern Hemisphere, Northern and So ...

. It was originally named Samhain Catena in December 2015 because it was believed to only consist of one crater, however on June 20, 2016 it was renamed to Samhain Catenae.

Geology

It is believed that the Samhain Catenae was formed through asymmetric convection and a

diapir A diapir (; , ) is a type of intrusion in which a more mobile and ductilely deformable material is forced into brittle overlying rocks. Depending on the tectonic environment, diapirs can range from idealized mushroom-shaped Rayleigh–Taylor ...

s similar as what is seen in the Hanami Planum. The thickness of the Catenae is about 36 miles deep compared to the 27 mile average over the whole dwarf planet. There is very little

mineralogical Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...

difference between the catenae and the rest of Ceres further adding evidence to its

tectonic Tectonics ( via Latin ) are the processes that result in the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. The field of ''planetary tectonics'' extends the concept to other planets and moons. These processes ...

origin.

References

{{reflist Ceres (dwarf planet)

Etymology

Geology

See also

References